Mixing the Unmixable 254
markthebrewer writes "From an article in the New Scientist: Conventional wisdom every 15 year-old knows says that you can't mix oil and water without some kind of surfactant. However a team lead by Richard Pashley from the Australian National University in Canberra have done it simply by first removing all dissolved gases from the water. Apart from the obvious potential improvements in salad dressings, it could have an impact on the manufacture of everything from drugs to paint - anywhere an emulsion is required. Apparently, it will also give some insight into the mysterious 'long-range hydrophobic effect' (or why oil droplets coalesce over surprisingly long distances)." Keep in mind the usual scientific caveat: this experiment doesn't seem to have been replicated by other experimenters yet.
not real science (Score:2, Insightful)
AKA: "Uh, guys, some soap fell into the bottle but let's pretend there isn't any and call it science!"
cold fusion? (Score:2)
Re:cold fusion? (Score:2)
Excuse me... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Excuse me... (Score:2)
Re:Excuse me... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Excuse me... (Score:5, Funny)
i "no"?
Geeze
Re:Excuse me... (Score:5, Funny)
I'm married to a teacher. I see papers like that go across her desk. She relishes giving them Zeros. -=I=- relish seeing them get Zeros. It's gut wrenching that we're creating a generation that prides itself on its stupidity.
Before you go off on me, no I didn't spell check this. Spelling Nazis cease and desist. I know I'm a worthless clod who can't spell hippopotomu... hipopto... ah fuck it
Re:Excuse me... (Score:2, Interesting)
> It's gut wrenching that we're creating a generation that prides itself on its stupidity.
You should read this [slashdot.org] article featured on /. lately. It gave me some thoughts about why teens are willing to be stupid.
Re:Excuse me... (Score:2)
Re:Excuse me... (Score:2)
I know exactly what that is. It's an espresso maker.
(somehow, Arnold Schwarzenegger quotes just don't have the same bite to them that Homer Simpson or Arnold Rimmer have.)
Re:Excuse me... (Score:2)
So here I am!! I was a 15 year old (actually younger) that knew about surfactants! Now I'm 24 though, but I still remember the geekyness of my youth
Re:Excuse me... (Score:2)
Re:Excuse me... (Score:2)
Re:Excuse me... (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Excuse me... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Excuse me... (Score:2)
Re:Excuse me... (Score:2)
Duh!
(Actually, I'm 16, so I don't count.)
Re:Excuse me... (Score:2, Funny)
So, at what age do you learn to count over there? :)
Re:Excuse me... (Score:5, Funny)
Every single one. What did you do to wash the vasoline off your hands?
Re:Excuse me... (Score:2)
Soap.
Re:Excuse me... (Score:2)
Exactly.
Re:Excuse me... (Score:3, Funny)
I didn't know magazine pages were surfactants!
Re:Excuse me... (Score:2, Insightful)
p.s. I am joking.
"Surfactant"... no wait, don't tell me... (Score:2)
I dunno... (Score:2)
Wrong word (Score:3, Interesting)
Bruce
Re:Wrong word (Score:2, Interesting)
<dig> The only reason 'mixable' isn't in the accepted jargon-set is that it isn't confusing to non-scientists.
Re:Excuse me... (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Excuse me... (Score:2)
Some of them might also get cable, since the TV show has been on some assorted networks at odd hours at various times due to syndication.
Re:Excuse me... (Score:2, Funny)
- ISO 9002 certified (How? Perhaps the company is compliant, but why is this on the bag?)
- ANSI-RAB-QMS Accredited (Again, how does this apply to the rice?)
- Exported by DATA CORPORATION of Pakistan (ah, ok, so the rice is a Data product..., I'm still confused..
"Obviously you've intercepted a packet of bits from the Al-Queda internet! You'd better return it to the store and hope they don't notice that you took it!
Re:Excuse me... (Score:2)
I guess it makes sence to put on the bag that their standard of quality for their product has been tested and approved by an ISO team.
I wonder (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:I wonder (Score:2, Interesting)
1. Dissolved oils/other hydrophobic molecules will reach more areas. Which is bad.
2. Dissolved oils will get diluted in the environment more, possibly to non-toxic levels. Which is good.
Now, which of those would outweigh the other, who knows?
Re:I wonder (Score:3, Funny)
Hmm, maybe any of the following:
Exxon-Valdez bottled water
No mo' GoJo
Vegetable oils that penetrate the skin and enter the blood stream (Lube your Heart with new STP Salad Dressing!)
McD's marinates fries in tallow juice. (Ecch)
Uncannily something related to CowboyNeal
Now I need ... (Score:5, Funny)
It's like mixing oil and water, assuming that all of the dissolved gases haven't been removed from the water.
Yeah, that rolls off the tongue.
If they argue over the results, or the credit... (Score:3, Funny)
Not replicated by other scientists? (Score:5, Funny)
how funny (Score:2, Funny)
But how will I describe my bad relationships? (Score:4, Funny)
Re:But how will I describe my bad relationships? (Score:4, Funny)
A better headline: (Score:3, Funny)
In other news, record sub-zero temperatures in hell.
Re:A better headline: (Score:2)
hydrophobic (Score:3, Funny)
"He takes the air out and he doesn't get the long-range hydrophobic force. It doesn't nail the hydrophobic force down, but now we have something to work on," says James Quirk, a chemist at the University of Western Australia in Perth..."
Hydrophobic, eh? So that's the reason they don't mix: the oil is afraid of the water. Neat.
PS I wonder if the chemist's middle initial is T.
Re:hydrophobic (Score:3, Funny)
My....God!
But...it... can't.. mix...! Must...have...green....women....
From the article... (Score:3, Funny)
Of course!!!!! (Score:5, Funny)
Ahhh, Once you remove all of the Hydrogen and Oxygen I can see where there would no longer be a problem!!!
Re:Of course!!!!! (Score:3, Informative)
Good Eats (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Good Eats (Score:2)
I call BS (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:I call BS (Score:2)
What evidence do you have that gases are not dissolved in our body fluids?
Mod this puppy to the basement.
You are correct (Score:2, Informative)
Correct to the contrary it is well known that dissovled gases are in our blood stream. This is partly how CO2 travels, indeed a small percentage but still occurs.
Re:I call BS (Score:2)
Re:I call BS (Score:4, Informative)
Re:I call BS (Score:5, Interesting)
The oil-water mixture is probably also a metastable state. In the presence of any catalysts (in this case dissolved gases; in the case of biological systems this function could be taken over by proteins, salt ions, I-don't-know-what-else...) the oil molecules would condense and clot together. Oil droplets are thermodynamically stable only above a certain droplet size; the same is true for water droplets in the case of the supercooled gas. Without catalysts, the critical droplet size cannot be achieved.
Read the article (Score:2)
Re:I call BS (Score:2)
I have only seen this article posted once, maybe tomorrow it will be a dupe.
Re:I call BS (Score:2)
I call BS on your silly assertion that "biological system's don't have free gasses floating around."
On the contrary, your cells are full of oxygen dissolved in water. Or don't you breathe? You also have carbon dioxide, nitrogen, and all sorts of other gases from air dissolved in your body.
(The dissolved nitrogen is what causes the bends when divers come up too fast.)
Re:I call BS (Score:2, Informative)
No.
How do you suppose the O2 makes it way to the hemoglobin?
Well, I'll tell you:
the oxygen diffuses through the cell membranes of the alveoli, disolves in the liquid component of the blood, diffuses through the cell membrane of the Red Blood Cells, and binds to the hemoglobin.
Of course, the oxygen bound to hemoglobin is in equilibrium with the oxygen disolved in the RBC's cytoplasim, which is in equilibrium with the oxygen disolved in the liquid component of blood. (I am simplifying, but you get the idea.)
It may be biology, but it isn't black magic how this stuff works, the laws of physical chemistry must still be obeyed, there has to be an equilibrium between the phases.
This aspect of blood is pretty well understood too:
there is 0.03ml oxygen per liter of blood per mm Hg partial pressure of oxygen, or about 2.9ml oxygen disolved per litre of arterial blood, and 1.2ml of disolved oxygen per litre of venous blood. Breathing 100 percent oxygen will, of course, increase these numbers.
Another reason to call BS... (Score:2)
techno? (Score:3, Funny)
Re:techno? (Score:2)
Any country song and Mauro Picotto.
I can see the decks bursting into flames when you try THAT mix.
WTF is going on here? (Score:5, Interesting)
An alternative might be to disperse the medicine in degassed water, which is already produced on a large scale by the oil industry.
You're telling me the oil industry itself makes degassed water on a large scale - for some unmentioned reason - and didn't discover this researcher's claims that oil and degassed water spontaneously emulsify? What's up with that?
Re:WTF is going on here? (Score:4, Funny)
Re:WTF is going on here? (Score:2)
Re:WTF is going on here? (Score:5, Informative)
This has been done by drag racers for years, and as another poster mentioned, was even used in spitfires in WWII. The reason it works is the same principal as a steam engine: hot water -> steam, expanding dramatically in the process, thus providing more pressure on the piston. However, the high temperatures in an engine cause some of the water to be ripped apart into H2 and O2, at which point the H2 can recombine to form highly acidic compounds that corrode your engine and reduce its operating life many times over. That is why it is not commonly used unless super-high torque is required from an engine NOW and you don't care how long the engine lasts after that.
Of course, there's still the other obvious problem of putting too much water in your gas...
Re:WTF is going on here? (Score:2, Informative)
Re:WTF is going on here? (Score:2)
Slowing the reaction to make the compression follow a more efficient curve makes sense.
Re:WTF is going on here? (Score:2)
Urm.. Soap? (Score:2, Informative)
It was once my job to figure out how to get oil out of wastewater, and it could be a really difficult problem. Oil/water emulsions are nothing new.
Caveat Emptor... (Score:2, Insightful)
The two guys who claimed that they produced cold fusion in a laboratory also didn't publish in a peer reviewed journal. It turns out they were full of crap. Just 'cause it's written doesn't make it so. Once it's in a peer reviewed journal, I'll seriously be interested (chemistry news on
Anyway, the New Scientist is well known for its overhyping of science.
What's Next?! (Score:3, Funny)
Re:What's Next?! (Score:3, Funny)
french dressing (Score:3, Funny)
The effect prevents oil's dispersion in water, and means that you can only make oil and water emulsions, such as French dressing for salads, by shaking them and adding stabilising agents. ?
Second of all, the oil/water thing is more of an Italian dressing, I believe; and First of all, we don't call it french dressing any more, we call it Freedom Dressing.
Re:french dressing (Score:2)
I call it nasty... Tom-ay-toe... Tom-ah-toe...
Confusing title.... (Score:2, Funny)
I thought it was about Bill Gates and RMS having a love child together.
Meineke discovered this YEARS ago! (Score:2)
Stoopid question ... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Stoopid question ... (Score:5, Informative)
Real-world example of wanting something to stay mixed: Paint
Have you ever opened a can of paint that's been sitting around in your basememt or garage for a few years? Some of the resinous compounds separate from the base materials the same way that the Olive Oil in your blender will eventually rise to the top again once you turn it off. Paint is more viscous and is not simply oil and water, but the same forces are in play.
The end result is that there is certainly commercial need for things to stay mixed together over longer times.
More reading for the curious (Score:5, Informative)
From the article, it would be a stretch to say that Pashley has found a way to overcome "long-range" hydrophobic effects. Those effects are still present. However, he has found a way to get the hydrophobic liquid to break away in small droplets. Once broken away from the bulk, standard DLVO theory [uchicago.edu] takes over to keep the particles apart. DLVO is not a cancelation of hydrophobic effects, it is just an overpowering of hydrophobic effects by electrostatic effects.
Unfortunately, it seems as though Pashley has no good explanation for why the degassing method works, it just does. This could be interesting, as more researchers study the role of gasses in keeping hydrophobic and hydrophilic liquids apart.
Overall, quite interesting, though New Scientist does tend to exagerate scientific findings.
Tony
Energy Companies (Score:3, Funny)
If the oil industry uses this on a large scale it would seem that accidents would have happened where the oil came into contact with this degassed water. Those damn energy companies have known all along.....OIL AND WATER DO MIX!
Good for Soda (Score:2)
Re:Good for Soda (Score:3, Interesting)
Geeks note: Brominated vegetable oil is also an ingredient in Mountain Dew, and probably other of your favorite flavors of synthi-caff.
As a chemist... (Score:5, Informative)
They are adding 2 ml of oil and 33 mils of water and after mixing they still have some oil phase (from the picture in the paper). They are reporting an increase in the solubility, not that oil and water in these conditions are completely miscible as implied by the
As for my questions, I'm not sure I understand their results with respect to the observation that re-exposure to air doesn't immediately reverse the effect. This sort of raises a red flag to me, because (assuming there isn't any covalent chemistry going on) it means that achieving equilibrium is rather slow, and it may be that they are not at equilibrium when the measurements are made. Either way it is an interesting paper. (This would be better phrased as a question than a statement, I might have just missed the answer in the paper....)
-Sean
As a biochemist... (Score:2, Funny)
Do you think that NIH knows that it funds this kind of late night experiments?
(I might have to make a few latex glove helium balloons too)
Already been done? (Score:2, Informative)
Deep in the lab ... (Score:4, Funny)
Grad student: Uh, that's just a martini, and not a very dry one.
Scientist: Blast! Well, bottom's up. We'll just change gin to "oil" and vermouth to "water" and publish anyway.
Hmmm...... (Score:5, Interesting)
"The mix spontaneously formed a cloudy emulsion".
This is very different from the usual case where you take an oil and water mix and maybe some surfactant and agitate it.
The reason is that the formation of surface area during the dispersion of oil into water normally requires an energy input. Surfactant reduces the energy required and also often stabilizes an emulsion by adding some repulsive forces (either steric or electrostatic) between the droplets. However, with the exception of systems called microemulsions that increased surface area always represents a energy increase. With time (the amount of time depending on the use of suractant etc.) that free energy will cause the emulsion to break and form two homogeneous layers.
Microemulsions are the exeception; they are unusually favorable systems that reduce the energy of formation of surface area to near zero, probably less than the thermal energy kT available. Thus they can spontaneously form emulsions that are stable indefinitely. Microemulsions generally require very specific compositions to form so they are not often seen except in some specialized applications.
The problem with Pashley's work is that he is claiming the spontaneous formation of an emulsion.. This would normally be expected only if the surface energy of his mixture was near zero - and there is nothing in the description of this system to indicate that this is happening, regardless of the side show with air bubbles.
What is more likely is that his oil-water system actually contains some small amount of surfactant as an impurity (quite typical in many oils). If so, the process of lowering temperature will take this mixture through what is known as the phase inversion temperature, where the mixture will achieve a minimum surface tension. This lowered usrface tension will make formation of an emulsion with minimal energy input quite likely.
I could not repeat it (Score:3, Interesting)
observations: the oil stayed in a tight slick on the surface for about 10 seconds. Then it spread out, I'm assuming because of the heat of the water.
After a about 45s, a piece of wood was introduced to the water, which caused mild boiling suggesting that the water had indeed been devoid of air.
After more than 30 mnutes, the slick was still on the surface without mixing.
Conclusions: those guys are need to accumulate more data.
Ah, so that's what was wrong with (Score:2)
This could change geeks' lives forever... (Score:2)
Another practical example (Score:2)
Here's your chance! (Score:2)
To remove all dissolved gasses from water, simply heat the water at a "Low" setting and bring it slowly to a boil. It's that simple. There's a kids' science experiment to demonstrate this effect at http://www.bigelow.org/virtual/handson/diss_air.ht ml [bigelow.org].
Watch for those air bubbles during heating to verify
that the water has dissolved gasses already.
Put the de-gassed water in a sealed container (a soda bottle) and put some of the original water in an identical (but labeled) container. Collect water from other sources (tap, lake, well), splitting those into original and de-gassed containers in the same way. A sample from a fish tank is guaranteed to have plenty of dissolved gasses, otherwise the fish would be dead. Getting different water sources gives reasonable independence from the effects of non-gaseous impurities (minerals, for example) on your results. Let all water bottles come to the same temperature.
Choose an oil to try. Then for each bottle of water, prepare another container with a small amount of oil. Add a small amount of each type of water to those oil samples and shake vigorously.
Quantify what you see by measuring the time that it takes for all (or most) of the re-separation to happen. Remember, what you're looking for is any consistent difference between the original and de-gassed samples.
You should have plenty of water left, so rinse out those mixing containers and try different oils: canola oil, corn oil, baby oil, motor oil, etc. If you really want to be thorough, put all the water bottles in the refrigerator to try the experiment at another temperature.
If you try all this and you can't see any difference in the mixing between the original and de-gassed water, then you have disproved the theory. If you do see differences, then you have successfully duplicated the experiment.
There you go. You're a scientist!
Re:Here's your chance! (Score:2)
Don't shake in bottles. What was I thinking? Put the oil and water into a zip-lock bag with no air and squish it all around to mix.
Incidentally, my own experiments have so far shown no difference in emulsion effects between normal and de-gassed water ...so far.
-Rick
Re:hmm (Score:2)
In this case the dissolved gases were removed by sucessive freezing and thawing of the water, pumping off the gases released at each freeze. Not the sort of chemical process I would worry about personally.
Re:hmm (Score:2, Insightful)
Hmm....
* Can't butcher in the city of Albany
* Can't make bread in my crappy apartment
* Can't grow vegitables
* No idea how to make Tofu
So, er... what can we eat? (And why, exactly, should a species that can eat anything from carrion to dirt to dried meat worry about the genetics of its food? Unless the bugger's toxic, mutative, or just bad tasing I see no problem in eating it.)
Re:Sald dressing made of what?? (Score:2)
Re:whats so mysterious about this?? (Score:3, Informative)
The problem here, as far as I understand it, is that if you put two small droplets of oil far away from each other on a water surface, they'll tend to meet up sooner than you would expect just from random movement. There's nothing obvious from orgo that says why that should happen.
Re:industrial junk food... (Score:2)
That 12 molar glacial acetic acid is hell on the tastebuds.
(i.e. the vinegar and lemon juice you refer to are 95% water).