Emulsion stability--experimental studies on simultaneous flocculation and creaming

Abstract

An experimental technique has been developed to study the emulsion stability with simultaneous flocculation and creaming. Experiments were carried out by using different ionic strengths, two different dispersants in water (C36H74 and C28H58) and different particle size distributions. Cyclic changes in particle size distributions (PSD) are observed when flocculation and creaming occur simultaneously. Initially, the PSD shifts to the right toward larger particle sizes and then reverses and shifts to the left toward smaller particle sizes. This reverse shift in PSD had been observed both in theory and experiment. There are no adjustable parameters in the theory and the agreement between the theoretically predicted changes in PSD and those observed experimentally is excellent.