Influence of hydrophobicity distribution of particle mixtures on emulsion stabilization

Abstract Whilst emulsions stabilized by uniform particles are well established, the emulsification behavior of heterogeneous mixtures of particles with varying hydrophobicity is rarely examined. Consequently, the influence of the distribution of particle hydrophobicity on oil-water emulsion stabilization is poorly understood. In the present work, the wettability of the bitumen froth fine solids from Alberta oil sands was studied by film flotation and toluene-water emulsification tests, before and after a hydrothermal treatment at 300–420 °C. This approach provided a series of populations of particles with different distributions of hydrophobicity. The initial fine particles in the bitumen froth had a critical surface tension ranging from 26 to 56 mN/m, with a mean value of 39 mN/m. Hydrothermal treatment at 300–420 °C progressively shifted the hydrophobicity distribution of the fine particles, resulting in a lower mean critical surface tension and a narrower critical surface tension range. The emulsifying capacity of the fine particle mixtures, as indicated by the volume of the produced toluene-water emulsions, was unrelated to the mean critical surface tension. Instead, emulsification depended on the proportion of a specific sub-fraction of particles with a critical surface tension of 27–30 mN/m. This sub-fraction of particles, with intermediate hydrophobicity, dominated the emulsification behavior of the particle mixtures.