title: Interfacial hydrodynamic instabilities driven by cross-diffusion in reverse microemulsions.
abstract: When two microemulsions are put in contact in the gravity field along a horizontal contact line, cross-diffusion can trigger the transport of one species in the presence of a gradient in concentration of another species. We show here theoretically that such cross-diffusion effects can induce buoyancy-driven convective instabilities at the interface between two solutions of different compositions even when initially the less dense solution lies on top of the denser one. Two different sources of convective modes are identified depending whether positive or negative cross-diffusion is involved. We evidence the two predicted cross-diffusion driven instabilities experimentally using a two-layer stratification of Aerosol-OT (AOT) water-in-oil microemulsions solutions with different water or AOT composition.
authors.affiliation: Department of Chemistry and Pharmacy, University of Sassari, Via Vienna 2, 07100 Sassari, Italy.
authors.forename: M A
authors.initials: MA
authors.lastname: Budroni
authors.affiliation: Nonlinear Physical Chemistry Unit, Service de Chimie Physique et Biologie Théorique, Université libre de Bruxelles, CP 231 - Campus Plaine, 1050 Brussels, Belgium.
authors.forename: J
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Carballido-Landeira
authors.affiliation: Department of Chemistry and Biology, University of Salerno, via Giovanni Paolo II 132, 84084 Fisciano (SA), Italy.
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Intiso
authors.affiliation: Nonlinear Physical Chemistry Unit, Service de Chimie Physique et Biologie Théorique, Université libre de Bruxelles, CP 231 - Campus Plaine, 1050 Brussels, Belgium.
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: De Wit
authors.affiliation: Department of Chemistry and Biology, University of Salerno, via Giovanni Paolo II 132, 84084 Fisciano (SA), Italy.
authors.forename: F
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Rossi
mesh_terms: D004655:Emulsions / Q000737:chemistry*; D057446:Hydrodynamics; D008956:Models, Chemical
chemical_list: D004655:Emulsions