Investigation on properties of aqueous foams stabilized by aliphatic alcohols and polypropylene glycol

Abstract

Foams stabilized by nonionic surfactants are usually moderately stable due to high drainage rate and intense bubble coalescence and coarsening. This study aimed to investigate comparatively the foam properties of aliphatic alcohols (methyl isobutyl carbinol (MIBC) and 2-octanol) and polypropylene glycol (PPG400). Experiments were conducted using the FoamScan method at various surfactant concentrations and gas flow rates where the foam volume, liquid content of foam and foam half-life were determined. The results showed that both foamability and foam stability of surfactant solution increased with increasing gas flow rate and surfactant concentration for all tested surfactants. PPG400 was an unusually strong surfactant having the largest surface activity compared with MIBC and 2-octanol, which exhibited the maximum foaming performance and foam stability at all tested gas flow rates and concentrations. The present study suggested that foam properties depended primarily on the type of surfactant and its concentration and secondarily on the gas flow rate. In addition, properties of interface are closely related to that of foam, which is a significant point if one wants to produce foams for specific applications.

Graphical Abstract

Keywords:

• Aliphatic alcohol
• foam properties
• foam stability
• polypropylene glycol
• surface properties

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the National Nature Science Foundation of China (51574240; 51504254) and the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities of China (2015XKMS039) for which the authors express their appreciation.