How do you measure the decrease in oil in water?

Question

As stated above:

How would I go about measuring decrease in oil in a water-oil mixture over time?

I understand that time would obviously be measured by a stopwatch or another timer, but what I am concerned with is the decrease in oil.

Can anyone think of a way to measure the decrease that insures that the measurement of decrease is specifically aimed at the oil and does not include the decrease in water(which would be the main problem since mass over time would include that potential decrease)...

Answer 1

In general, oil and water are not soluble in each other.  So if you have a mix of oil and water, what you really have is a suspension.  To measure the proportion of the suspension that is oil, you just need to separate the oil and water and measure each.  This can be done by weighing after centrifuging.  

At the start, T = 0, take a sample, centrifuge so that the oil and water separate, then remove the oil from the top of the water and weigh it, then weigh the water.  That is your baseline:  it tells you the amount of oil and water per unit volume at the outset.  

Then repeat the measurements at the needed time intervals.  

In the end, you will generate a series of measurements that show the progressive change in each component.  At each time point water + oil = 100%, and you will be able to see the progressive change in proportion.

Hope this helps, and good luck.