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Updated: May 20, 2026

Studying Surfactant Effects on Hydrate Crystallization at Oil-Water Interfaces Using a Low-Cost Integrated Modular Peltier Device
Published on: March 18, 2020
Effects of surfactants on the formation and the stability of interfacial nanobubbles
Xuehua Zhang1, Md Hemayet Uddin, Haijun Yang
1Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, University of Melbourne, VIC 3010, Australia. xuehuaz@unimelb.edu.au
Abstract:
Contamination has previously been invoked to explain the flat shape and the long lifetimes of interfacial nanobubbles (INBs). In this study, the effects of surfactants on the formation and the stability of INBs were investigated when surfactants were added to the system before, during, and after the standard solvent exchange procedure (SSEP) for the formation of INBs. The solutions of sodium dodecyl sulfate (SDS) above critical micelle concentration were found to have little effect on the bubble stability. Likewise, cleaning of the substrate with a surfactant solution had little effect. In contrast, addition of a water-insoluble surfactant during the formation dramatically reduced the INBs. Finally, repeated application of SSEP to surfactant-coated substrates progressively rinsed the surfactant off the system. Thus, we found no evidence to support the hypothesis that (1) INBs are stabilized by a layer of insoluble organic contaminant or that (2) SSEP introduces surface-active materials to the system that could stabilize INBs.
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