INNATE INHIBITION OF FOAMING AND RELATED CAPILLARY EFFECTS IN PARTIALLY MISCIBLE TERNARY-SYSTEMS

Capillary activity of solutions and phenomena dependent thereon are found to appertain to certain sets of conditions of temperature and composition corresponding to the same features of phase diagrams regardless of the system. More particularly, regions of innate inhibition of foaminess are located within the miscibility gap wherever one solution, which acts as the foam inhibitor, has a positive spreading coefficient with respect to its equilibrium conjugate solution, but even then only where the foam-inhibiting conjugate is the internal phase of the liquid/liquid dispersion formed by the two conjugate solutions. These relations are confirmed in the ternary systems benzene-water-ethanol and rc-hexane-water-ethanol at 20 °C. © 1979 American Chemical Society.