The marangoni effect and enhanced oil recovery: Part 2. Interfacial tension and drop instability

Abstract

A computer-based method is described for the determination of the interfacial tension between pendant and sessile drops in a surrounding continuous phase. This has been used to determine the effect on interfacial tension of increasing amounts of aliphatic alcohols, from methanol up to n-octanol, equilibrated between a hydrocarbon solvent (Shellsol) and water. The results indicated large decreases in interfacial tension, with n-butanol, followed by n-propanol giving the greatest reduction. Measurements were also made of the rate of change of interfacial tension during the mass transfer of 2.5% of the alcohols between phases. Changes were observed for all alcohols from ethanol to n-pentanol, t..