(Surfactant plus polymer) interaction parameter studied by (liquid plus liquid) equilibrium data of quaternary aqueous solution containing surfactant, polymer, and salt

(Liquid + liquid) equilibrium (LLE) data of quaternary aqueous system containing polyoxyethylene (20) cetyl ether (with abbreviation name Brij 58, non-ionic surfactant), diammonium hydrogen phosphate, and poly ethylene glycol (PEG) with three molar masses (M-w = (1000, 6000, and 35,000) g . mol(-1)) have been determined experimentally at T = 313.15 K. Furthermore, the Flory-Huggins theory with two electrostatic terms (Debye-Huckel and Pitzer-Debye-Huckel equations) have been used to calculate the phase behavior of the quaternary systems and (surfactant + polymer) interaction parameter as well as interaction parameters between other species. Temperature dependency of the parameters of the Flory-Huggins theory has been obtained. Also an effort hive been done to show that addition of PEG as well as increasing the temperature can shift the binodal curves of the ternary aqueous system containing surfactant and salt to lower mole fraction of salt. Also the effect of polymer molar mass on the binodal diagram displacement has been discussed. Crown Copyright (C) 2008 Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.