The interfacial dilational viscoelastic properties of two demulsitiers with straight chain (SP-169) and branched chain (AE-121) at the oilwater interfaces were investigated by means of the longitudinal waves method and the interfacial tension relaxation method, respectively. The results obtained by the longitudinal waves method showed that the dilational viscous component for AE-121 and SP-169 also passed through a maximum value with increasing concentration. It was found that the maximum value appeared at different demulsifier concentrations during our experiment frequency; and the higher is the dilational frequency, the lower is the concentration. The influences of AE-124 and SP-169 on the dilational viscoelastic properties of the oil-water interface containing surface-active fraction from Iranian crude oil have been measured. The results clearly stated that both demulsifiers could obviously decrease the dilational elasticity of oil-water interface containing surface-active fraction. At low concentration, because of stronger adsorption ability, SP-169 has stronger ability to decreasing the dilational modulus than AE-121. We also found that the dilational modulus of the interface contained surface-active fraction passed through a minimum value with increasing demulsifier concentration for both demulsifiers. This result indicated the dosage of demulsifier had an optimum value. The results obtained by means of interfacial tension relaxation method showed that the slow relaxation processes involve mainly rearrangement in the conformation of the molecules appeared with increasing demulsitier concentration. (C) 2003 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.