Hydrophilic compounds reduction

The top-down approach involves size reduction by the application of three main types of force — compression, impact and shear. In the case of colloids, the small entities produced are subsequently kinetically stabilized against coalescence with the assistance of ingredients such as emulsifiers and stabilizers (Dickinson, 2003a). In this approach the ultimate particle size is dependent on factors such as the number of passes through the device (microfluidization), the time of emulsification (ultrasonics), the energy dissipation rate (homogenization pressure or shear-rate), the type and pore size of any membranes, the concentrations of emulsifiers and stabilizers, the dispersed phase volume fraction, the charge on the particles, and so on. To date, the top-down approach is the one that has been mainly involved in commercial scale production of nanomaterials. For example, the approach has been used to produce submicron liposomes for the delivery of ferrous sulfate, ascorbic acid, and other poorly absorbed hydrophilic compounds (Vuillemard, 1991 ... 

At concentrations above their aqueous solubility, the so-called c.m.c., low-molar-mass biosurfactants form micelles in the aqueous phase. Micelles are spherical or lamellar aggregates with a hydrophobic core and a hydrophilic outer surface. They are capable of solubilising nonpolar chemicals in their hydrophobic interior, and can thereby mobilise separate phase (liquid, solid or sorbed) hydrophobic organic compounds. The characteristics for the efficiency of (bio)surfactants are the extent of the reduction of the surface or interfacial tension, the c.m.c. as a measure of the concentration needed to bring about this reduction, and the molar solubilisation ratio MSR, which is the number of moles of a chemical solubilised per mole of surfactant in the form of micelles [96]. 

Zhu and coworkers used hydrophilic filters (low protein binding PVDF) in their model [179]. This change in the setup resulted in a significant transport time reduction to 2 h (compared with more than 10 h for a hydrophobic filter) without loss of information for low permeability compounds. 

Overall, dissolution in the electrolyte solutions of all studied compounds led to substantial decreases in their concentrations in the original crude oil. However, the rate of decrease was different for each compound, in accordance with the molecular properties. Bennett and Larter (1997) note that, in comparison with the original crude oil, the concentration of phenol decreased relative to cresol. The change in phenol content relative to cresol is highlighted by measuring the ratio (phenol/o- -i-m- + p- cresol), which shows that the reduction of more hydrophilic phenol relative to cresol is in accord with their relative dissolution in water. 

The phase behavior of anionic-cationic surfactant mixture/alcohol/oil/ water systems exhibit a similar effect. First of all, it should be mentioned that because of the low solubility of the catanionic compound, it tends to precipitate in absence of co-surfactant, such as a short alcohol. When a small amount of cationic surfactant is added to a SOW system containing an anionic surfactant and alcohol (A), three-phase behavior is exhibited at the proper formulation, and the effect of the added cationic surfactant may be deduced from the variation of the optimum salinity (S ) for three-phase behavior as in Figs. 5-6 plots. Figure 16 (left) shows that when some cationic surfactant is added to a SOWA system containing mostly an anionic surfactant, the value of In S decreases strongly, which is an indication of a reduction in hydrophilicity of the surfactant mixture. The same happens when a small amount of anionic surfactant is added to a SOWA system containing mostly a cationic surfactant. As seen in Fig. 16 (left), the values of In S at which the parent anionic and cationic surfactant systems exhibit three-phase behavior are quite high, which means that both base surfactants, e.g., dodecyl sulfate... 

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