Table 2.
The design and results of orthogonal optimizing experiments.
| Test no. | Factors |
D | Areas of ME region | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| A (oil) | B (co-surfactant) | C (surfactant/co-surfactant) | |||
| 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 60.0 |
| 2 | 1 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 51.5 |
| 3 | 1 | 3 | 3 | 3 | 48.0 |
| 4 | 2 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 43.5 |
| 5 | 2 | 2 | 3 | 1 | 53.5 |
| 6 | 2 | 3 | 1 | 2 | 52.0 |
| 7 | 3 | 1 | 3 | 2 | 45.5 |
| 8 | 3 | 2 | 1 | 3 | 39.0 |
| 9 | 3 | 3 | 2 | 1 | 34.5 |
| Mean 1 | 53.2 | 49.7 | 50.3 | 49.3 | |
| Mean 2 | 49.7 | 48.0 | 43.2 | 49.7 | |
| Mean 3 | 39.7 | 44.8 | 49.0 | 43.5 | |
| Range | 13.5 | 4.9 | 7.1 | 6.2 | |
ME: microemulsion.
The three levels (1, 2 and 3) of factors are shown in Supplementary Table S1. Based on the standard L9 (34) orthogonal design, D indicates blank column. The area of ME region was employed as evaluation index. Calculation of ME region area: the area of the smallest triangle in pseudo-ternary phase diagrams is defined as 1, and the number of triangles in ME region is counted (accurate to 0.5). Range denotes the difference between maximum mean and minimum mean among three levels (1, 2 and 3). Surfactant/co-surfactant denotes the surfactant to co-surfactant ratio (w/w).