Visualization Methods for Surfactants on Surfaces under Flow

Abstract

The unique conditions of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill and subsequently unorthodox cleanup efforts have renewed interest into creating safer and more effective oil dispersants. Oil dispersants are a mixture of surfactants and solvents that help break oil into small droplets. The specific goal of this thesis was to create an experimental setup in which fluorescently tagged surfactants can be imaged on droplets subjected to flow, emulating long timescale conditions of oil droplets rising to the surface. This was done by combining fixed light sheet microscopy with specially designed and machined flow chambers. Droplets were subsequently shown to be suspended and stable with minimal drift in balanced flow assemblies. Also, fixed droplets in gels were imaged with the constructed light sheet microscope setup. Under flow cell conditions, droplets were imaged under the widefield microscope but not yet via light sheet microscopy. However, there is significant evidence that this setup could be used as a powerful tool for imaging surfactants on droplets subjected to flow.