Cross-diffusion in a water-in-oil microemulsion loaded with malonic acid or ferroin. Taylor dispersion method for four-component systems.

We describe an improved Taylor dispersion method for four-component systems, which we apply to measure the main- and cross-diffusion coefficients in an Aerosol OT water-in-oil microemulsion loaded with one of the reactants of the Belousov-Zhabotinsky (BZ) reaction, water(1)/AOT(2)/R(3)/octane(4) system, where R is malonic acid or ferroin. With [H(2)O]/[AOT] = 11.8 and volume droplet fraction phi d = 0.18, when the microemulsion is below the percolation transition, the cross-diffusion coefficients D(13) and D(23) are large and positive ( D(13)/ D(33) congruent with 14, D(23)/ D(33) congruent with 3) for malonic acid and large and negative for ferroin ( D(13)/ D(33) congruent with -112, D(23)/ D(33) congruent with -30) while coefficients D(31) and D(32) are small and negative for malonic acid ( D(31)/ D(33) congruent with -0.01, D(32)/ D(33) congruent with -0.14) and small and positive for ferroin ( D(31)/ D(33) congruent with 5 x 10(-4), D(32)/ D(33) congruent with 8 x 10(-3)). These data represent the first direct determination of cross-diffusion effects in a pattern-forming system and of the full matrix of diffusion coefficients for a four-component system. The results should provide a basis for modeling pattern formation in the BZ-AOT system.