Measurements and modelling of interfacial tension for water plus carbon dioxide systems at elevated pressures

A novel apparatus, PeDro, was used to measure interfacial tension in a two-component system made of water and compressed carbon dioxide at temperatures ranging 278-335 K and pressures 0.1-20 MPa. Our optimized experimental setup utilized the quasi-static pendant drop method and ensured experimental errors below 2%. The interfacial tension showed a pronounced dependence on pressure and temperature. A regression function was derived that allows to interpolate between the experimental data with high precision. Molecular dynamics simulations were performed for liquid-liquid and liquid-vapor interfaces between water and carbon dioxide at elevated pressures. The interfacial tension was obtained from long constant-volume production runs as the difference between normal and tangential pressure components. The results showed a good agreement with experimental data, with our model system reproducing faithfully the pressure-temperature dependence of the interfacial tension. (c) 2006 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.