Interfacial phenomena at the compressed co2-water interface

• Autor(a) principal: Bharatwaj,B.
• Data de Publicação: 2006
• Outros Autores: Rocha,S. R. P.
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Brazilian Journal of Chemical Engineering
• Texto Completo: http://old.scielo.br/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S0104-66322006000200004
• topic: High pressure; Interfacial tension; Surfactants; Water-in-CO2 microemulsions

Compressed CO2 is considered to be a viable alternative to toxic volatile organic solvents with potential applications in areas including separation reactions, and materials formation processes. Thus an interest in CO2 stems from the fact that it is very inexpensive, has low toxicity, and is not a regulated. However, compressed CO2 has a zero dipole moment and weak van der Waals forces and thus is a poor solvent for both polar and most high molecular weight solutes, characteristics that severely restrict its applicability. In order to overcome this inherent inability, surfactant-stabilized organic and aqueous dispersions in CO2 have been proposed. This work will discuss fundamentals and recent advances in the design of amphiphiles for the novel CO2-water interface.