The effect of surfactant adsorption on the evaporation of volatile hydrocarbons from their aqueous solutions

Abstract

The mass transport of dissolved hydrocarbon molecules from water to the interior of air bubbles was analyzed. The effect of ionic surfactant adsorption at the bubble surface on the evaporation of mesitylene from aqueous solutions into the bubble was investigated. It has been stated that the presence of surfactants does not affect the evaporation efficiency until the surface coverage 6 exceeds ca. 0.7. A certain decrease of the mass transport coefficient has been observed only in cases when interaction occurred between the hydrocarbon and surfactant molecules. © 1992, Taylor & Francis Group, LLC. All rights reserved.