Following the guidelines presented in a previous
work (Silva et al., 2008), this paper calculated
phase diagrams for water-in-oil emulsions based on
water droplets effective interaction potential. In
order to evaluate real systems behavior, properties
of some defined hydrocarbons were used to obtain
the Hamaker constant and the polarizability of
emulsified droplets. The phase diagrams were
represented as a result of water volume fraction in
function of temperature, aqueous phase
electrolyte concentration, or applied electric field
curve.
Kinetically, elevated temperatures promote
higher emulsion-destabilization rates. However,
the present results show that, from a
thermodynamic point of view, emulsions are more
stable at high temperatures. At low temperatures,
emulsions tend to separate into droplet-diluted
and droplet-concentrated phases, coexisting in
thermodynamic equilibrium.