A novel method to quantify the amount of surfactant at the oil/water interface and to determine total interfacial area of emulsions.

We present a methodology to quantitatively determine the fraction of sodium dodecyl sulfate (SDS) that partitions to the oil/water interface in oil-in-water macroemulsions and calculate the total interfacial area (TIA) through the novel use of filtration through nanoporous membranes. Ultrafiltration was carried out in centrifuge tubes having nanoporous filters with a 30,000 molecular weight cutoff (MWCO), so that emulsion droplets would not pass through, and only SDS (as monomers and micelles) that is in the bulk water phase (i.e., not at the interface) could pass through. The concentration of SDS in the filtrate was determined and used to calculate the TIA for each system. The mean droplet diameter of the emulsions was measured by light scattering. We analyzed the effects of total SDS concentration and oil chain length on the amount of SDS that partitions to the interface, the TIA, and the droplet diameter. The results showed that partitioning of SDS to the oil/water interface increases with increasing total SDS concentration in emulsion systems (i.e., the more SDS we add to the bulk solution, the more SDS partitions to the oil/water interface). However, the surface-to-bulk partition coefficient (i.e., the SDS concentration at the interface divided by the SDS concentration in the aqueous phase) remains the same over the entire concentration range (8-200 mM). The results showed a chain-length compatibility effect in that the minimum amount of SDS partitioned to the interface for C(12) oil. The droplet size measurements revealed a maximum size of droplets for C(12) oil. Penetration of oil molecules into SDS film at the interface has been proposed to account for the maximum droplet size and minimum partitioning of SDS at the oil/water interface for C(12) oil+SDS emulsion system. The TIA, as determined from our ultrafiltration method, was consistently two orders of magnitude greater than that calculated from the droplet size measured by light scattering. Possible explanations for this disparity are discussed.