Question

Which has more surface tension oil or water?

Answer 1

1. When at rest, a liquid surface will always tend to shrink so that it has the minimum possible surface area. This is known as surface tension.
2. The cause of surface tension is the cohesive (attractive) force between the liquid molecules. This cohesive force is different for different materials.
3. If a drop of water and oil is gently dropped on a flat surface, the droplet of water will tend to be more spherical whereas the oil droplet will be a bit flatter.
4. This happens because water has higher surface tension and hence it becomes able to pull the volume of liquid together more than the drop of an oil can.

Thus, water has more surface tension than oil.