Visualization and analysis of adsorption behavior of alcohols on aqueous alcohol solution surfaces utilizing Brewster angle videomacrography and digital image processing

Abstract

An experimental study has been made to establish an optical method to investigate the adsorption behavior of alcohols on their aqueous solutions without adding any tracer or fluorescent material to the solutions. An expanded laser beam with controlled polarization is incident upon each solution surface of interest at the Brewster angle of air/water interface. This optical setting permits us to detect the ppolarized light reflected from an adsorbed film as two-dimensional real-time videograms with high sensitivities. The technique has been applied to visualizing adsorbed films of various alcohol homologues. List of symbols