Journal of Molecular Liquids
DOI: 10.1016/j.molliq.2015.12.021
Percolative behaviour of w/o AOT/iC8/H2O microemulsions added with different n-alkanols is reported. 1-n-alcohols and 2-n-alkanols presented dissimilarities affecting percolation. Smaller alcohols ease percolation, especially at low concentrations. Greater molecules implied a reinforcement of the surfactant film that delayed percolation threshold. Also, a neural network based simulation model of the phenomenon has been developed. This single model has only five input variables and can estimate percolation temperature of microemulsions added with the two types of alcohols studied, with an RMSE of 0.98oC and R2=0.9740 (validation dataset values). This is considered a successful prediction rate, following previous developments with other families of additives, that confirms neural networks as reliable tools for percolative behaviour modelling.
