Experimental study of surfactant transfer in fluid systems in microgravity conditions

The paper presents the results of the space experiment studying the process of surfactant dissolution from a binary fluid drop in microgravity conditions. The experiment was performed during the flight of the space satellite “Foton M-3” in September 2007. Investigation of the surfactant diffusion was made using a new original setup based on the interferometric method. The experimental cuvette represented a thin Hele-Shaw cell filled with water, which surrounded a drop in the form of a short liquid cylinder with a free lateral surface. The drop consisted of a binary mixture, in which one of the components was the surfactant easily dissolved in water. The use of interferometry made it possible to visualize and investigate evolution of the surfactant distributions and the flow structures in the drop and the surrounding liquid. The characteristic stages of the dissolution process were identified, and the rate of the concentration front propagation was defined. It was shown that in microgravity conditions the process of surfactant diffusion through the interface did not initiate an intensive solutal Marangoni convection as contrasted to the case of terrestrial simulation. The observed phenomenon has its origins in the long-lived fields of surfactant concentration formed near the interface due to the absence of the gravitational mechanisms of motion and large characteristic time of admixture diffusion which is hundreds of times longer than the time of thermal diffusion.