Phase inversion temperature factors affecting

It was a century ago that researchers started to study the factors affecting the behaviour of water-oil-surfactant systems but it is only with the introduction of Winsor s R theory (1954) that the formulation effects could be interpreted. Winsor s R theory was the first qualitative description of the formulation, paving the way to an understanding of how intermolecular interactions among the different chemical species present in a system are related to its behaviour. Throughout the following decades, several empirical experimental correlations such as the phase inversion temperature (PIT), semiempirical ones such as the cohesive energy ratio (CER), and models based on thermodynamics such as the surfactant affinity difference (SAD) or the hydrophilic-lipophilic deviation (HLD) [15, 143, 144] led... 

Phase inversion in emulsions can be one of two types (i) a transitional inversion, induced by changing factors that affect the HLB of the system, such as temperature and/or electrolyte concentration and/or (ii) a catastrophic inversion, which is induced by increasing the volume fraction of the disperse phase. 

As can be seen from the above description, there are many variables involved in the phase-inversion technique. Among others the composition of the polymer solution, the solvent evaporation temperature and evaporation period, the nature and the temperature of the gelation media, and the heat treatment temperature are the primary factors affecting the reverse osmosis performance of the membrane. When polymers other than cellulose acetate are used, solvents and nonsolvent additives appropriate to prepare membranes from the particular polymer must be found. Depending on the combination of variables, membranes of different polymeric materials with different pore sizes can be prepared. 

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