Sizes of ionic surfactant micelles and their clustering according to data on viscosity of micellar solutions

Abstract

Data available on the viscosity of micellar solutions of surfactants belonging to the homologous series of alkyltrimethylammonium bromides containing 10, 12, 14, and 16 carbon atoms in their alkyl chains, as well as sodium dodecyl sulfate solutions, have been analyzed. It has been shown that the systems under consideration may be adequately described by the Einstein equation. The results obtained have made it possible to identify the concentration ranges in which the intermicellar interaction does not affect significantly the flow of the micellar solutions. Data on the relative viscosity of the studied micellar solutions have been employed to calculate the hydrodynamic radii of micelles formed by the surfactants with different lengths of hydrocarbon radicals in their molecules.