Liquid-Liquid Phase Equilibria in Water-Amphiphile-Oil Ternary Systems: Experiment and Molecular Simulation

We have studied the ternary systems ‘water–methanol–trichloromethane’ and ‘water–methanol– dichloromethane’. We obtained the dependences of the interfacial tension on the fraction of methanol in the oil phase, which were approximated by the crossover isotherm, combining the adsorption-induced rapid decrease of the interfacial tension (Langmuir–von Szyszkowski behavior) and the gradual vanishing of the interfacial tension near the critical point. The experimental values were used to refine the simulation parameters and a good agreement between molecular dynamics and experiment was obtained.