Late stage of the phase-separation process: coalescence-induced coalescence, gravitational sedimentation, and collective evaporation mechanisms.
We study the separation in the binary and ternary mixtures of the water/surfactant C12E5/polymer PEG system. The phase separation in the mixtures at late stages is governed by two distinct mechanisms: the coalescence-induced coalescence and the droplet evaporation mechanism. We show that when the coalescence-induced coalescence process is globally terminated in the sample consisting of a dense system of domains, another mechanism, which we call the collective droplet evaporation, starts to dominate. It manifests itself as a front of "evaporating" domains, which propagates at constant speed in the system. We show that the collective evaporation is induced by the gravitational drift of large droplets.
Department of Mathematics and Natural Sciences, College of Science, Cardinal Stefan Wyszyński University, Dewajtis 5, 01-815 Warsaw, Poland.
Tomasz
T
Kalwarczyk
Natalia
N
Ziebacz
Marcin
M
Fiałkowski
Robert
R
Hołyst