Structural, kinetics, and rheological properties of low ionic strength dilute solutions of a dimeric (gemini) surfactant

C Oelschlaeger, G Waton, S J Candau, M E Cates

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract

The structural and dynamical properties of low ionic strength micellar solutions of a cationic gemini surfactant have been investigated by means of light scattering, T-jump, and rheological experiments. In the dilute regime, below the entanglement concentration, the surfactant molecules self-assemble into polydisperse micellar aggregates with size distribution extending up to similar to100 run. Rheology and T-jump experiments show that the dynamical processes are speeded-up by the addition of salt. In particular the critical shear rate above which a shear thickening occurs increases with the salt content. Also the characteristic time for chain distribution equilibration after a thermal perturbation increases upon removal of salt to reach very large values-in the salt-free case. This result supports the speculation given previously that the reversible scission could explain the strong dependence of the shear thickening behavior on thermal cycling.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)7265-7271
Number of pages7
JournalLangmuir
Volume18
Issue number20
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 1 Oct 2002

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