Experimental Study on the Thermal Stability of Surfactant Aqueous Solutions

Abstract

Based on the determination of the equilibrium surface tension for anionic surfactant SDS and non-ionic surfactant TrionX-100 under different concentrations, the two surfactants continuous boiling test and the SDS for the hydrolysis tests were carried out. Objective is to analyze the diminishing process for active ingredient of the surfactants. Results show that the liquid with surfactant is capable of reducing the surface tension. With the increment of surfactant concentration, the surface tension decreases gradually, and the surface tension is minimized under the critical micelle concentration (CMC); When the concentration lower than CMC, the surface-active of TritonX-100 presented is stronger than the SDS. At continuous boiling experiment, the thermal stability of TritonX-100 solution is better than the SDS. When the SDS aqueous solution is in the sealed environment with set temperature and the continuous boiling environment under experiment situation, the active ingredients of SDS solution will change and the equilibrium surface tension will be undermined. Owing to the chemical losses, the inherent characteristics of solution perform dramatically different from the original one during boiling experiment, which includes the hydrolytic destruction and micro-layer pyrolysis chemical effects.