The Role of Surface Tension in Colloid Retention and Remobilization during Two-phase Flow

Abstract:

During unsaturated flow, the accumulation of colloids at fluid-fluid interfaces (AWIs) and fluid-fluid-solid contact lines (AWSs) depend on those areas and surface tension. The area and capillary forces exerting on colloids can be different by adjusting the liquid-liquid surface tension. In the present work, we adjust only surface tension to change the configuration of AWI and AWSs. Experiments were performed in a Polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) micro-model. Fluorescent carboxylate-modified polystyrene microspheres, with diameter of 300nm were used as model colloids. Water and fluorinert-FC43 were used as the two immiscible liquids. Given the fact that PDMS is a hydrophobic material, fluorinert was the wetting phase and water was the non-wetting phase in this micro-model. Surface tension was changed by adding fluorinert soluble surfactant into fluorinert-FC43. We visualized colloids interacting with the moving fluid-fluid interfaces by confocal microscopy. We also obtained colloid concentration breakthrough curves by measuring the fluorescent intensities in the outlet of the micro-model.

The breakthrough curves showed that under steady-state unsaturated flow, less colloid were retained in the system under low surface tension. The visualization results showed that, under low surface tension, the fluid-fluid interfaces are almost flat, thus less area and short contact line available for colloids to attach to. During transient flow, more colloids were remobilized by the moving fluorinert-water interfaces (FWIs) and fluorinert-water-solid contact lines (FWSCs) under high surface tension. Confocal results and measured breakthrough curves confirmed that lowing surface tension decreased capillary force and liquid-liquid area, resulting less retention and remobilization of colloids.