The contribution of chemistry to new Marangoni mass-transfer instabilities at the oil/water interface

Abstract

Spontaneous interfacial motions appear at an interface between two immiscible phases in a state far from equilibrium, e.g. an aqueous phase of an organic acid or a complex ion and an organic phase of a long-chain surfactant molecule. The instabilities observed are related to variations in the interfacial tension. It is shown that they resemble the well known Marangoni effect by considering interfacial convection and the coupling between diffusion and convection fluxes, but they differ by the presence of chemical reactions. The notion of assisted desorption is defined in order to interpret the experiments.

The analysis of this phenomenon could be useful in determining the optimal conditions for obtaining convective interfacial transfer to enhance liquid–liquid extraction processes.