Adsorption and surface tension analysis of concentrated alkali halide brine solutions

In this study, the equilibrium and dynamic surface tensions of sodium chloride and potassium chloride solutions have been measured as a function of concentration up to saturation (5.2 M for NaCl and 4.1 M for KCl) using sessile bubble tensiometry. The experimental results show that the surface tension of these and other salts significantly increases with increasing concentration due to negative adsorption of ions at the air/brine interface, regardless of their structure maker and breaker nature. Furthermore, the effect of these salts on the surface tension of aqueous solutions of sodium dodecyl sulfate (SDS) and methyl isobutyl carbinol (MIBC) was also studied. These results show that the salts increased the surface activity of SDS and MIBC. In the case of SDS, KCl increased the surface activity of SDS more significantly than NaCl did. In the case of MIBC, the effect of NaCl on MIBC surface activity was more significant than that of KCl.