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The hydrophilic–lipophilic deviation (HLD) concept has been demonstrated to be useful in determining characteristic curvature (Cc) of a surfactant. Cc is a surfactant parameter that reflects the hydrophobicity/hydrophilicity or the tendency of the surfactant to form microemulsions in an oil–water system. In order for the Cc value to be calculated, the formation of the optimum Winsor III microemulsion of oil and water systems under specific salinity and temperature conditions is required. Surfactant Cc values have been widely used to quantitatively screen and select a suitable surfactant in formulations for different application areas, especially enhanced oil recovery (EOR). The HLD concept is an effective tool for designing new surfactant molecules to meet the target Cc value for a specific formulation condition. The HLD equation indicates the dependence of a microemulsion system on the changes of various system parameters. This article demonstrates how the HLD equation can be derived in different ways depending on the characteristics of the surfactant to identify the proper experimental approach so that the Cc values of different types of surfactants can be determined. Three types of surfactants were studied, including nonionic alcohol ethoxylates, anionic alkyl propoxy ethoxy sulfates, and carboxylates. The application of the HLD concept to surfactant selection for EOR application was also demonstrated.

We discuss two anomalies that have characterized our recent work in steric field-flow fractionation (steric FFF): (a) retention has been found to vary with flow rate, contrary to simple theory; arid (b) low density cells elute earlier than theory predicts. After reviewing the theory, we describe experiments in both gravitational and centrifugal fields applied to two spherical beads (microporous silica and polystyrene latex) of essentially equal sizes but dilycrent densities. The velocity dependence of retention is verified for both kinds of particles, but we find that retention depends dramatically on density as well. We speculate that these anomalous dependencies originate in a velocity-dependent lift force acting to pull the particle awayfrom the wall. This hypothesis is supported by the observation that a n increase in field strength increases retention. We conclude that a controllable field strength (as in a centrifuge) is an important asset in steric FFF, permitting increased separation speed and allowing the option of separating particles o n the basis of density as well as size.

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