Composition-insensitive highly viscous wormlike micellar solutions formed in anionic and cationic surfactant systems

Abstract

We investigated phase behavior and rheological properties of aqueous micellar phase formed in water/cocoyl glutamate neutralized with triethanol amine (CGT-n)/hexadecyl trimethylammonium salt (CTAB or CTAC) systems, where n is a degree of neutralization. Micellar phase appears in wide composition range with respect to the surfactant mixing fraction in ternary phase diagrams at 25 °C. At high mixing fraction of cationic surfactant in the water/CGT-n/CTAB systems, one can observe a highly viscous micellar phase in which worm-like micelles are expected to form. Contrary to conventional systems in which worm-like micelles are formed, the zero-shear viscosity of the micellar solution in the water/CGT-n/CTAB system with n=1.2 increases with the addition of cationic cosurfactant and once decreases after a maximum, then increases again and decreases after the second maximum. At n=1.5 and 2, highly viscous solution is observed in the relatively wide range of surfactant mixing fraction instead of two maxima of the viscosity curve observed at n=1.2. In the case of CTAC instead of CTAB we can observe narrow composition range for the maximum viscosity. Frequency sweep measurements were performed on the highly viscous samples in the water/CGT-1.5/CTAB system. Typical viscoelastic behavior of worm-like micellar solutions is observed; i.e. the curves of storage (G') and loss (G") moduli make a crossover and the data points of G' and G" can be fitted to the Maxwell model. Relaxation time against the mixing fraction of two surfactants behaves similarly to the zero-shear viscosity change, whereas the plateau modulus continuously increases in the plateau region for the zero-shear viscosity curve. © 2010 by Japan Oil Chemists' Society.