Interfacial tension between water and high pressure CO2 in the presence of hydrocarbon surfactants

Interfacial tension of water–CO2 interface was measured by pendant drop method in the presence of a surfactant of various concentrations. The surfactants used were three surfynols which are non-ionic blanched hydrocarbon with different length of the alkyl side chain. Prior to the interfacial tension measurements, the solubility of the surfynols in CO2 were determined from cloud point method. The measured interfacial tensions indicated that an addition of small amount surfactant did reduce the interfacial tension. The interfacial activities of surfactants were evaluated from the slope of the interfacial tension reduction curve against the surfactant concentration and rationalized in terms of the molecular natures such as hydrophobic alkyl chain length.