title: Liquid-Liquid Phase Equilibria and Interactions between Droplets in Water-in-Oil Microemulsions.
abstract: The liquid-liquid phase equilibria of [water/sodium bis(2-ethylhexyl)sulfosuccinate (AOT)/n-decane] with the molar ratio w0of water to AOT being 37.9 and [water/AOT/ethoxylated-2,5,8,11-tetramethyl-6-dodecyne-5,8-diol(Dynol-604)/n-decane] with w0= 37.9 and the mole fraction α of Dynol-604 in the total surfactants being 0.158 were measured in this study. From the data collected in the critical region, the critical exponent β corresponding to the width of the coexistence curve was determined, which showed good agreement with the 3D-Ising value. A thermodynamic approach based on the Carnahan-Starling-van der Waals type equation was proposed to describe the coexistence curves and to deduce the interaction properties between droplets in the microemulsions. The interaction enthalpies were found to be positive for the studied systems, which evidenced that the entropy effect dominated the phase separations as the temperature increased. The addition of Dynol-604 into the (water/AOT/n-decane) microemulsion resulted in the decrease in the critical temperature and the interaction enthalpy. Combining the liquid-liquid equilibrium data for (water/AOT/n-decane) microemulsions with various w0values determined previously, it was shown that the interaction enthalpy decreased with w0and tended to change its sign at low w0, which coincided with the results from the isothermal titration calorimetry investigation. All of these behaviors were interpreted by the effects of entropy and enthalpy and their competition, which resulted from the release of solvent molecules entrapped in the interface of microemulsion droplets and were dependent on the rigidity of the surfactant layers and the size of the droplet.
authors.affiliation: School of Chemistry and Molecular Engineering, East China University of Science and Technology , Shanghai 200237, China.
authors.forename: Tianxiang
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Yin
authors.affiliation: School of Chemistry and Molecular Engineering, East China University of Science and Technology , Shanghai 200237, China.
authors.forename: Mingjie
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.affiliation: School of Chemistry and Molecular Engineering, East China University of Science and Technology , Shanghai 200237, China.
authors.forename: Xiaoyi
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Tao
authors.affiliation: School of Chemistry and Molecular Engineering, East China University of Science and Technology , Shanghai 200237, China.|Department of Chemistry, Lanzhou University , Lanzhou, Gansu 730000, China.
authors.forename: Weiguo
authors.identifier: 0000-0002-5517-2382
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Shen