Persistent thin water films encapsulate oil droplets crossing an oil-water interface

[Display omitted] •Oil droplets crossing an oil-water interface do not mix with the bulk oil.•The droplets remain encapsulated by stable long-lasting thin water films.•Attraction of the film to the interface causes droplet flattening and film breakup.•Evolution of the droplet and film morphology vary with the Ohnesorge number.•The films eventually break up into a water-in-oil microemulsion. Understanding of oil-water interfacial phenomena is essential for predicting mixing and/or phase-separation in environmental and industrial systems. Time-resolved digital holography and planar laser-induced fluorescence are used for examining processes occurring after ascending buoyant oil droplets of varying viscosity cross a stratified oil-water interface. Previous studies have focused on the crossing process, and the current belief is that once this droplet becomes immersed in the oil, its content can mix with the bulk fluid. In contrast, we show that the droplets remain encapsulated by a stable continuous submicron thin water film, which prevent them from mixing. This film forms even in pure oil and water with minimal surfactant concentration and persists for periods that are three to four orders of magnitude longer than those of the crossing process. Observations following the film evolution reveal that segments located close to the interface appear to be attracted to the bulk water, causing the entire droplet to flatten slowly. The resulting reduction in the peripheral radius of curvature eventually breaks up the film into suspended submicron droplets. The morphology of this flattening process varies with oil viscosity, and its duration increases from seconds to nearly one hour as the oil viscosity increases from one to fifty cSt. In processes involving multiple oil droplets crossing the interface, they form a separate persistent long-lasting layer containing a complex thin-film structure that does not mix with the bulk oil. In contrast, thin oil films do not form around a descending water droplet after it crosses the interface.