Effect of Surfactant Chain Length on the Rheological Properties of Cationic Surfactants and a Hydrophobic Counterion

Abstract

The rheological behavior of alkyimethylammonium 2-hydroxy-1-carboxy-naphthoate, C_xTA-2.1-HCN (x = 16, 14, 12, 10, and 8) is presented. With increasing 2.1 HNC/C_xTAOH (x = 16, 14, 12) ratio, the viscoelasticity of the solutions changes due to a transition in the micellar shape from small micelles to rodlike micelles and finally to multilamellar vesicles (MLV). On the other hand, a transition from small micelles to multilamellar vesicles (MLV) was observed for solution with C_xTA-2.1-HCN (x = 10 and 8). The MLV phases behave like a weak gel and have a yield stress value. Rheological measurements were performed for these viscoelastic systems in order to find out the dependency of the viscoelastic behavior on the surfactant chain length and hydrophobic counterion concentration. Some theoretical models as reptation mechanism was also applied in order to get some structural details and to illustrate the rheological behavior of these viscoelastic systems. Some models that correlate MLV-modulus on the surfactant morphology are also presented and discussed.

Keywords:

• Hydrophobic
• counterion
• rheology
• surfactants
• vesides
• yield stress

Acknowledgments

The author acknowledges Dr. Heinz Hoffmann for his knowledge and discussions. The College of Science at King Faisal University is also acknowledged.

Notes

MLV: Polydispersse multilamellar vesicles.