A new simple method for determining the critical micelle concentration of surfactants using surface plasmon resonance of silver nanoparticles

Abstract

Background: A new and simple determination method for critical micelle concentration (CMC) has been developed based on surface plasmon resonance (SPR) technique. In the current work, the CMCs for sodium dodecyl sulfate (SDS), cetyl trimethyl ammonium bromide (CTAB), and Triton X-100 (TX-100) were determined in aqueous media by SPR of silver nanoparticles (AgNPs). Findings: The variation of the absorbance of AgNPs in respect of bulk water is a consequence of the micelles formation from the surfactants monomer, here, SDS, CTAB, and TX-100. Under the optimal experimental conditions, CMCs for SDS, CTAB, and TX-100 using SPR technique were 8.6 × 10−3, 9.1 × 10−4, and 2.6 × 10-4 mol L−1, respectively. Conclusions: The potential application of SPR technique for the CMC determination has been demonstrated in this work. Comparing to the other CMC determination methods, this SPR method is universal, sensitive, and nonadditive; it can be used for the direct measurements of CMC without adding any dyes or fluorescent probes. CMC values of various surfactants including SDS, CTAB, and TX-100 determined by this method are in agreement with those determined by the other methods. The results obtained by our simple method have comparable accuracy with those obtained from more elaborate experiments. [Figure not available: see fulltext.].