Influence of the Surface Viscosity on the Breakup of a Surfactant-Laden Drop

We examine both theoretically and experimentally the breakup of a pendant drop loaded with an insoluble surfactant. The experiments show that a significant amount of surfactant is trapped in the resulting satellite droplet. This result contradicts previous theoretical predictions, where the effects...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inPhysical review letters Vol. 118; no. 2; p. 024501
Main Authors Ponce-Torres, A, Montanero, J M, Herrada, M A, Vega, E J, Vega, J M
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published United States 13.01.2017
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Summary:We examine both theoretically and experimentally the breakup of a pendant drop loaded with an insoluble surfactant. The experiments show that a significant amount of surfactant is trapped in the resulting satellite droplet. This result contradicts previous theoretical predictions, where the effects of surface tension variation were limited to solutocapillarity and Marangoni stresses. We solve numerically the hydrodynamic equations, including not only those effects but also those of surface shear and dilatational viscosities. We show that surface viscosities play a critical role to explain the accumulation of surfactant in the satellite droplet.
ISSN:1079-7114
DOI:10.1103/PhysRevLett.118.024501