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Published on: August 15, 2018
Adsorption of surfactant from non-polar liquid into porous material characterized using conductivity measurement
1Dispersion Technology Inc., 364 Adams Street, Bedford Hills, NY 10507, USA.
Hypothesis:
Surfactants cause ionization in non-polar liquids, enabling such liquids to become electrically conductive with that conductivity being a linear function of the surfactant concentration. Consequently, measurement of the conductivity can be used as a tool for monitoring surfactant concentration.
Experiments:
We describe here a simple method for studying surfactant adsorption from oil into a porous material. The conductivity of solutions containing toluene and porous particles was measured as a function of time after the addition of surfactant, at various concentrations. We applied this method for characterizing surfactant (SPAN 20) adsorption by porous particles (silica gel Davisil) suspended in the non-polar liquid (toluene). We the suggested a simple theoretical model for the initial stage of this adsorption process and tested its prediction experimentally.
Findings:
The experimental data confirms all predicted theoretical trends both qualitatively and quantitatively. This method can be used for understanding surfactant behavior in rock formations during oil recovery, optimizing surfactant concentration, and analyzing chemical composition.
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