Bottom-up formation of dodecane-in-water nanoemulsions from hydrothermal homogeneous solutions

Abstract

Only 10 seconds: Hydrocarbons and water do not mix under standard conditions, but they do mix freely at high temperature and high pressure near the gas/liquid critical point of water (Tc=374 °C, P c=22.1 MPa). Quenching of homogeneous solutions of dodecane and water at such extreme conditions in the presence of a surfactant results in bottom-up formation of nanosized oil droplets in water in only 10 seconds. © 2013 The Authors. Published by Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA. This is an open access article under the terms of Creative Commons the Attribution Non-Commercial NoDerivs License, which permits use and distribution in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, the use is non-commercial and no modifications or adaptations are made.