Mechanisms for lowering of interfacial tension in alkali/acidic oil systems: effect of added surfactant

This paper reports that experimental studies are conducted in order to determine the physicochemical mechanism responsible for lowering of interfacial tension in alkali, surfactant, and surfactant-enhanced alkali/acidic oil systems. A well-defined model oil is chosen to examine the influence of various surfactants and surfactant mixtures, such as oleic acid and its ionic counterpart, sodium dodecyl sulfate, petroleum sulfonate, and isobutanol, on equilibrium interfacial tension. With added surfactant alone, the interfacial tension goes through an ultralow minimum with increasing acid concentration. This proves for the first time that the un-ionized acid species plays a major role in affecting interfacial tension, and the ionized acid species.