Relations between physicochemical properties and instability of decontamination foams

Abstract

The addition of dodecanol as a co-surfactant in sodium dodecyl sulfate (SDS) solution is known to stabilize the foam. This paper presents complementary studies of this system: foam liquid fraction and wall-film thickness, viscoelastic and Plateau border pressure drop measurements for foams stabilized by SDS, SDS + dodecanol and SDS + dodecanol + xanthan gum in free drainage. It shows out that the addition of dodecanol and xanthan gum in a SDS foaming solution causes not only a deceleration of the foam drainage, but of the wall-film drainage also. In a second study, results are presented for nuclear decontamination foams stabilized by alkyl polyglucosides. Preliminary results are given for co-surfactant research with the influence of the addition of decanol and dodecanol in the alkyl polyglucoside solution and the foam stabilization effect of the addition of xanthan gum is pointed out.