Comparative analysis of complex liquids based on a multi-experimental approach

A parallel analysis is here presented between the results gathered by the author by means of three different experimental approaches – Dielectric analysis, Thermally Stimulated Depolarization (TSD) and Differential Scanning Calorimetry (DSC) – on some multi-component complex liquids consisting of association structures of self-assembling amphiphiles as, water-in-oil microemulsions. The highly dispersed nature of these systems was evidenced with the dielectric study: a Maxwell-Wagner relaxation was found to characterize this type of systems. The structural evolution of the system, against water addition, was well described by the orientational processes induced in the liquid samples by a nearly static electric field as in the TSD method. The investigation by DSC, besides offering a basic picture of the systemʹs thermodynamics, allowed the measure of the specific heat, at constant pressure, at the higher order percolative phase transition. The comparison between the results obtained on samples processed with identical thermal cycles, once under the action of an impressed electric field as in TSD, and, once in the absence of any impressed electric field as in DSC, did help distinguish three main concentration intervals within which structurally different systems form namely, isotropic microemulsions and two liquid crystalline structures of lyotropic type.