Experimental Measurement of Equilibrium Surface Tension of an Aqueous Solution of Polyethylene Glycol and a Surfactant

Abstract

A device is designed and constructed for measuring the equilibrium surface tension of water and a number of other solutions. The measured equilibrium surface tension of water, as a reference fluid, has good consistency with literature data. Moreover, the equilibrium surface tension of the aqueous solutions of surfactants and polymer composed of sodium dodecyl sulphate (SDS), Triton CG-110, dimethyl di-dodecyl-ammonium bromide (DDAB), and polyethylene glycol (PEG) with different molecular weights of 200, 300, 400, and 600, as well as that of the ternary solutions of SDS/PEG/water, Triton CG-110/PEG/water, and DDAB/PEG/water at 293.15 K and atmospheric pressure are measured. The equilibrium surface tension of the aqueous solutions of PEG 600 are measured at 296.15 K because PEG 600 is solid at 293.15 K. The measured data are compared with the predictions of thermodynamic models, and the results show that Redlich-Kister (RK) model has the lowest error in predicting the experimental data.

Keywords

• equilibrium surface tension
• surfactants
• polyethylene glycol
• thermodynamic models