Comparison of surface tension auto-oscillations in fatty acid–water and aliphatic alcohol–water systems

The new phenomenon of surface tension auto-oscillations can be initiated by using fatty acids as surface active substances. The oscillation characteristics of the adequate surfactant systems fatty acid–water and aliphatic alcohol–water having the same alkyl chain length, are compared. The results show that the buoyancy should be taken into account if the solubility of the surfactant is large enough and its density differs sufficiently from the density of water. In general, the behavior of the system fatty acid–water is more complicated than the earlier studied aliphatic alcohol–water systems.