Nonequilibrium Phenomena in Microemulsions

Abstract

When a small amount of surfactant is dissolved in water, molecular aggregates are formed which can solubilize oils giving rise to clear solutions called microemulsions. It has long been known that most microemulsions exhibit critical phenomena which are in certain respects similar to those of multicomponent fluids. The similarities are that there exist scaling laws when these systems approach the critical point or cloud point, and that their dynamics exhibits critical slowing down(l–13). However the physics of these systems differs appreciably from the general properties of multicomponent fluids in that the critical exponents found for micelles and microemulsions seem to be non-universal(1,2,8,12) and in the existence of critical phenomena at temperatures which differ appreciably from the critical temperature, Tc(8). These facts, especially the latter, are the reasons for the special significance of microemulsions for the study of non-equilibrium and/or non-linear phenomena(14).KeywordsCritical TemperatureCloud PointInterfacial TensionRayleigh NumberCritical PhenomenonThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.