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Laura Calvo - María Vilas Surfactants in microgravity
Hello, welcome to our school in Galicia, Spain.
My name is Laura Calvo and I am 15 years old.
And my name is María Vilas and I am also 15 years old.
We have all seen this many times:
Oil on top, water on the bottom.
But what happens if we enclose both liquids between two methacrylate plates?
oil - water
2.5 mm between plates
Please note we have colored the water with blue dye.
Right now, we can see the oil on the outside...
...and the water in the inside.
But let's repeat this with oil, water and a little of an interfactant.
As you can see, after about three minutes, we have the oil on top...
...and the water on the bottom.
To understand this, we have to really learn about concepts like adhesion.
-Cohesion. -Surface tension.
-Capillary action. -And hydrogen bond.
This is the interface of the system of oil and water.
It acts like a wall.
The surfactant will weaken that wall and gravity will do the rest.
Our question is, how will the surfactant...
...affect the oil-and-water interface in microgravity?
Our hypothesis is that we will not see asymmetries...
...like water on one side and oil on the other.
To test this, we would use two sealed prototypes like these.
One with oil and water...
...and the other with oil, water and surfactant.
And we would record it all with a high-definition camcorder...
...to compare both situations.
In microgravity, we expect both experiments to show the same forms.
Nonetheless, we know that oil and water with surfactant...
...will have a weaker interface.
Perhaps we will be able to see some mass transfers...
...that are masked on Earth because of gravity.
-Thank you for watching this video. -Goodbye.