Abstract
To better understand interactions between firefighting foams and a fire environment, we isolated interactions to a single surfactant containing bubble lamellae. A horizontal thin liquid film experiment was designed to study film rupture in the presence of heated air and heptane vapors. Thin films were formed from aqueous solutions of alkylpolyglycosides (APGs, G215 and G225), trisiloxane (502W and L77), and fluorinated (Cap) surfactants and their mixtures. The Cap surfactant film was the most stable to heat but in the presence of heptane, the surfactant film had a comparable (and the Cap:G215 mixture had a shorter) rupture time to the fluorine-free surfactant films. APG films showed the least destabilization with heptane followed by the trisiloxane films and the Cap film which was the most destabilized by heptane. L77, Cap, and their respective mixtures formed possible emulsions with the fuel vapors, turning cloudy with vapor introduction. The correlation between film rupture behavior and fuel induced foam lifetime may be better defined by minimizing error in lifetime and producing longer film lifetimes. This thin film experiment represents a new way of observing surfactant/fuel interactions that may elucidate important surfactant properties for firefighting foams.
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