Many analytical techniques have been developed for surfacetension measurements in both static and dynamic processes, such as the dynamic drop volume, 1 the capillary pressure tensiometry, 2 the drop shape method, 3 the dynamic capillary rise technique, 4 and the oscillating jet method.
5Most classical methods are traditionally applied under static conditions, which are time and reagent consuming and difficult to perform. Moreover, these methods are not practical for use as a detection system for flowbased analytical techniques (namely, flow injection analysis (FIA), sequential injection analysis (SIA), and liquid chromatography (LC), which are available for real-time process analysis. The dynamic surface tension detector (DSTD), a surface-tension measurement sensor, can be coupled as a detection unit with flow-based analytical techniques. DSTD is based on a drop pressure measurement of a growing drop. The DSTD is typically assembled from a capillary sensing tip connected to the main flow, and a pressure sensor that is mounted onto the side arm of the main flow. The pressure sensor measures the internal pressure of a growing drop relative to the atmospheric pressure. The pressure signal is dependent on the surface-tension properties of a given analyte, which flows through the end of the capillary sensing tip. This DSTD has been coupled with FIA, 6,7 SIA 8 and LC 9,10 for studying the interfacial tension properties of surface-active molecules at an air-liquid interface. A SIA system coupled with DSTD has been developed to perform high-throughput analyses of the interfacial properties of surface-active samples. 8 Such a SIA/DSTD system provides less reagent consumption and requires significantly less analysis time than the traditional FIA/DSTD.In the present work, attempts were made to develop SIA/DSTD instrumentation that is simpler than the previous one. 8 The developed SIA systems employ only a single syringe pump and one selection valve. New applications have also been investigated. One of the SIA systems has been demonstrated for the very simple and fast screening of water quality, based on the effects of ions on dynamic surface tension behaviors of a surfactant.Another simple SIA system has also been demonstrated for the quantification of a surfactant in an uncomplicated sample using a single standard calibration based on the on-line dilution of a standard.
ExperimentalInstrumentation Figure 1 depicts a schematic diagram of the SIA/DSTD system. The SIA system was assembled from a syringe pump (XP-3000 Syringe Pump with a valve; Cavro, San Jose, CA), 10 port multiposition valve (C25-3180EMH, VICI, Houston, TX), holding coil (PTFE tubing, 0.76 mm i.d., 1.59 mm o.d., 2500 µl) and mixing coil (PTFE tubing, 0.76 mm i. Simple sequential injection analysis systems with DSTD (SIA/DSTD) have been developed. One was employed for the study of the effects of the ion contents in solutions to the dynamic surface pressure of ionic surfactants. The results from the studies show the possibility for an alternative simple fast ...