Free energy of interface

Energetics predict that the free energy of interface formation has to be positive. If the free energy is negative, the interface is unstable or metastable. If the free energy is zero, the two phases are miscible and a boundary cannot exist. 

Because the free energy of interface formation is positive, work has to be done in order to expand the interface. The work, required to expand the surface of a liquid reversibly and isothermally by a unit area is called the surface tension, y,... 

Hildebrandt (1979a,b) objects to hypothesis of a hydrophobic effect on the basis of free energy of interfaces between water and n-hexane and water and... 

A general prerequisite for the existence of a stable interface between two phases is that the free energy of formation of the interface be positive were it negative or zero, fluctuations would lead to complete dispersion of one phase in another. As implied, thermodynamics constitutes an important discipline within the general subject. It is one in which surface area joins the usual extensive quantities of mass and volume and in which surface tension and surface composition join the usual intensive quantities of pressure, temperature, and bulk composition. The thermodynamic functions of free energy, enthalpy and entropy can be defined for an interface as well as for a bulk portion of matter. Chapters II and ni are based on a rich history of thermodynamic studies of the liquid interface. The phase behavior of liquid films enters in Chapter IV, and the electrical potential and charge are added as thermodynamic variables in Chapter V. 

A very important thermodynamic relationship is that giving the effect of surface curvature on the molar free energy of a substance. This is perhaps best understood in terms of the pressure drop AP across an interface, as given by Young and Laplace in Eq. II-7. From thermodynamics, the effect of a change in mechanical pressure at constant temperature on the molar h ee energy of a substance is... 

The basic phenomenon involved is that particles of ore are carried upward and held in the froth by virtue of their being attached to an air bubble, as illustrated in the inset to Fig. XIII-4. Consider, for example, the gravity-free situation indicated in Fig. XIII-5 for the case of a spherical particle. The particle may be entirely in phase A or entirely in phase B. Alternatively, it may be located in the interface, in which case both 7sa nnd 7sb contribute to the total surface free energy of the system. Also, however, some liquid-liquid interface has been eliminated. It may be shown (see Problem XIII-12) that if there is a finite contact angle, 0sab> the stable position of the particle is at the interface, as shown in Fig. XIII-5Z>. Actual measured detachment forces are in the range of 5 to 20 dyn [60]. 

The cleaning process proceeds by one of three primary mechanisms solubilization, emulsification, and roll-up [229]. In solubilization the oily phase partitions into surfactant micelles that desorb from the solid surface and diffuse into the bulk. As mentioned above, there is a body of theoretical work on solubilization [146, 147] and numerous experimental studies by a variety of spectroscopic techniques [143-145,230]. Emulsification involves the formation and removal of an emulsion at the oil-water interface the removal step may involve hydrodynamic as well as surface chemical forces. Emulsion formation is covered in Chapter XIV. In roll-up the surfactant reduces the contact angle of the liquid soil or the surface free energy of a solid particle aiding its detachment and subsequent removal by hydrodynamic forces. Adam and Stevenson s beautiful photographs illustrate roll-up of lanoline on wood fibers [231]. In order to achieve roll-up, one requires the surface free energies for soil detachment illustrated in Fig. XIII-14 to obey... 

The fluctuations of the local interfacial position increase the effective area. This increase in area is associated with an increase of free energy Wwhich is proportional to the interfacial tension y. The free energy of a specific interface configuration u(r,) can be described by the capillary wave Hamiltonian ... 

The effective free energy of the system of interfaces takes the general fonn [19, 80 and 81]... 

When a gas comes in contact with a solid surface, under suitable conditions of temperature and pressure, the concentration of the gas (the adsorbate) is always found to be greater near the surface (the adsorbent) than in the bulk of the gas phase. This process is known as adsorption. In all solids, the surface atoms are influenced by unbalanced attractive forces normal to the surface plane adsorption of gas molecules at the interface partially restores the balance of forces. Adsorption is spontaneous and is accompanied by a decrease in the free energy of the system. In the gas phase the adsorbate has three degrees of freedom in the adsorbed phase it has only two. This decrease in entropy means that the adsorption process is always exothermic. Adsorption may be either physical or chemical in nature. In the former, the process is dominated by molecular interaction forces, e.g., van der Waals and dispersion forces. The formation of the physically adsorbed layer is analogous to the condensation of a vapor into a liquid in fret, the heat of adsorption for this process is similar to that of liquefoction. 

While the surface tension of the adhesive, is easily measured in the laboratory, the other terms in Wa, by themselves, are not. A second easily measurable property associated with the solid-liquid-air system, however, is the contact angle, 9, the angle, drawn in the liquid, between the solid-liquid and the liquid-air interfaces, drawn in the plane perpendicular to the three-phase interline, as shown in Fig. 4. Minimization of the free energy of the solid-liquid-air... 

Most polymer pairs are thermodynamically incompatible, in the sense that their free energy of mixing is positive. This does not mean that there is absolutely no interdiffusion at all at the interface between them adjacent to the interface limited interdiffusion occurs, which can be seen as an increasing of the low surface entropy implied by a smooth surface [30-33]. This nanoscale roughening of an interface can increase the adhesion between the polymers. 

Random interface models for ternary systems share the feature with the Widom model and the one-order-parameter Ginzburg-Landau theory (19) that the density of amphiphiles is not allowed to fluctuate independently, but is entirely determined by the distribution of oil and water. However, in contrast to the Ginzburg-Landau approach, they concentrate on the amphiphilic sheets. Self-assembly of amphiphiles into monolayers of given optimal density is premised, and the free energy of the system is reduced to effective free energies of its internal interfaces. In the same spirit, random interface models for binary systems postulate self-assembly into bilayers and intro-... 

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