Comparison of Methods Used to Investigate Coalescence in Emulsions.

We present a study of moderately stable dilute emulsions. These emulsions are models for water contaminated by traces of oil encountered in many water treatment situations. The purification of water and the elimination of oil rely on the emulsion stability. Despite actively being studied, the topic of emulsion stability is still far from being fully understood. In particular, it is still unclear whether experimental methods accessing different length scales lead to the same conclusions. In the study presented in this paper, we have used different methods to characterize the emulsions, such as centrifugation and simple bottle tests, as well as investigations of the collision of single macroscopic oil drops at an oil-water interface. We studied different emulsions containing added polymer or surfactant. In the case of added polymer, centrifugation and single drop experiments led to opposite trends in stability when the polymer concentration is varied. In the case of added surfactant, both centrifugation and single drop experiments show a maximum stability when the surfactant concentration is increased, whereas bottle tests show a monotonous increase in stability. We propose tentative interpretations of these unexpected observations. The apparent contradictions are due to the fact that different methods require different drop sizes or different drop concentrations. The puzzling decrease in emulsion stability at a higher surfactant concentration observed with some methods, however, remains unclear. This coalescence study illustrates the fact that different results can be obtained when different experimental methods are used. It is therefore advisable not to rely on a single method, especially in the case of emulsions of limited stability for reasons explained in the paper.

Interfacial behavior of asphaltenes.

We review the existing literature on asphaltenes at various types of interfaces: oil-water, air-water, gas-oil and solid-liquid, with more emphasis on the oil-water interfaces. We address the role of asphaltene aggregation, recently clarified for asphaltenes in bulk by the Yen-Mullins model. We discuss the questions of adsorption reversibility and interfacial rheology, especially in connection with emulsion stability.

Delivery of functional polyelectrolytes from complexes induced by salt addition: impact of the initial binding strength.

This paper focuses on polyelectrolyte complexes (PECs) soft nanoparticles and how dissociation occurs upon salt addition. The system is composed of a strong polyanion (polystyrene sulfonate, PSS) and a weak polycation (poly(allylamine) hydrochloride, PAH) in large excess. Soft nanoparticles were obtained by pouring a PSS solution into a PAH one under constant stirring. As the charge density of PAH chain depends on the pH of the polyelectrolyte solution, PEC particles exhibit distinct behaviors under salt addition depending on the pH of the continuous phase. At pH=5.5, PAH chains are fully charged and the addition of salt produces particle aggregation followed by sedimentation. Conversely, at pH=10 where PAH is only partially charged, the addition of salt drives a progressive disentanglement of the two polyelectrolytes, as revealed by both viscosimetric and spectroscopic measurements. At sufficiently high ionic strength, the two electrolytes are fully dissociated. Our results emphasize differences in behavior (binding reversibility) between strongly and weakly bound polyelectrolytes of opposite charge upon addition of salt. We discuss the potential use of these systems as stimulus responsive materials for the delivery of scale nucleation inhibitors in application around petroleum recovery.

Contribution of flow field flow fractionation with on line static and dynamic light scattering to the study of hydrosoluble polyelectrolyte complexes.

Water soluble polyelectrolyte complexes (PECs) formed between polyaspartate (anionic polymer) and poly(trimethylammonium propyl methacrylamide chloride) (cationic polymer) were studied by flow field flow fractionation with on-line coupling multi-angle laser light scattering-quasi elastic light scattering-differential refractive index determination (F4/MALLS/QELS/DRI). The separation technique permits to characterize polydisperse PECs. The molar mass of the polycation (PC) influences the stiffness of the PECs and the proportion between single PECs (i.e. nPA/1PC) and multiple PECs (i.e. nPA/n'PC). High ionic strength with NaCl (>0.1 M) tends to break the multiple PECs while CaCl2 destroys PECs and leads to the formation of complexes polyaspartate/Ca2+. The studied PECs can be used as inhibitors to the calcite formation in the drilling fluids.