Surfactant chain length and concentration influence on the interfacial tension of two immiscible model liquids: a coarse grained approach

Abstract

The interfacial tension between immiscible liquids is studied as a function of a model linear surfactant length and concentration using coarse–grained, dissipative particle dynamics numerical simulations. The adsorption isotherms obtained from the simulations are found to be in agreement with Langmuir´s model. The reduction of the interfacial tension with increasing surfactant concentration is found to display some common characteristics for all the values of chain length modeled, with our predictions being in agreement with Szyszkowski’s equation. Lastly, the critical micelle concentration is predicted for all surfactant lengths, finding exponentially decaying behavior, in agreement with Kleven’s model. It is argued that these findings can be helpful guiding tools in the interpretation of available experiments and in the design of new ones with new surfactants and polymers.