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Aging of an unstable w/o gel emulsion with a nonionic surfactant

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Abstract

We study an unstable highly concentrated emulsion of water droplets in oil with a nonionic surfactant. A technique of light diffusion coupled to a rheometer allows simultaneous measurement of average droplet radius \(R\) and emulsion shear elastic modulus \(G \prime\) during time. Over the studied range of volume fraction (from 71 to 95%), we show that Princen and Kiss’ (J Colloid Interface Sci 112:427–437, 1986) model does not apply. A dimensional analysis based on the hypothesis of dominant van der Waals forces is proposed for nonionic surfactants, which is in good agreement with experimental data. We also show that the measured average droplet volume increases linearly with time and that the coalescence rate strongly depends on the volume fraction in relation with different topological conformations of droplets.

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Notes

  1. The following occurrences of “nonionic (ionic) emulsion” will be denoted by an emulsion in which the surfactant is nonionic (ionic).

  2. Although our samples are highly concentrated, dependent diffusion is not involved because the average distance between droplets center is always big enough compared to the laser wavelength (Tsang et al. 2000).

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Acknowledgement

We thank Daniel Quemada for useful remarks and comments.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Laboratoire d’énergétique et de mécanique théorique et appliquée CNRS UMR 7563, 2 avenue de la Forêt de Haye BP 160, Vandoeuvre-lès-Nancy, Cedex, 54501, France

    Julien Mougel, Christophe Baravian & François Caton

  2. Génie chimique des milieux rhéologiquement complexes BP 451, 1 rue Grandville, Nancy, Cedex, 54001, France

    Oscar Alvarez, Philippe Marchal & Lionel Choplin

  3. Groupe Physico-Chimie des colloïdes CNRS UMR 7565, Université Henri Poincaré BP 239, Vandoeuvre-lès-Nancy, Cedex, 54506, France

    Marie-José Stébé

Authors
  1. Julien Mougel
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  2. Oscar Alvarez
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  3. Christophe Baravian
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  4. François Caton
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  5. Philippe Marchal
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  6. Marie-José Stébé
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  7. Lionel Choplin
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Correspondence to Julien Mougel.

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Mougel, J., Alvarez, O., Baravian, C. et al. Aging of an unstable w/o gel emulsion with a nonionic surfactant. Rheol Acta 45, 555–560 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00397-006-0089-z

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00397-006-0089-z

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