Issue 5, 2011
From the journal:

Soft Matter

Phase diagrams come alive: understanding how to create, destroy or change ordered surfactant structures by polymerizing the counterions

Salomé dos Santos,a   Lennart Piculell,*a   Ola J. Karlssona  and  Maria da Graça Miguelb  

* Corresponding authors

a Division of Physical Chemistry, Center for Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Lund University, Lund, Sweden
E-mail: Salome.Santos@fkem1.lu.se, Lennart.Piculell@fkem1.lu.se, Ola.Karlsson@fkem1.lu.se

b Chemistry Department, Coimbra University, Coimbra, Portugal
E-mail: mgmiguel@ci.uc.pt

Abstract

Free radical polymerization of acrylate counterions to cationic alkyltrimethylammonium surfactant ions was performed in aqueous media. The results of the reactions were either formation, destruction or change of liquid crystalline surfactant structures, depending on the starting conditions such as the surfactant concentration, the content of inert counterions and the monomer-to-initiator ratio. The results were consistent with predictions inferred from equilibrium phase diagrams recently established for aqueous mixtures of the cationic surfactants alkyltrimethylammonium acetate or bromide (CnTAAc/Br; n = 12, 16) with the “complex salts” CnTAPAm, in which the counterions to the surfactant ions were polyacrylate polyions (PAs) of different degrees of polymerization (m = 25, 30 or 6000). Appropriate pathways, at constant water content, through the latter ternary phase diagrams show what happens, at equilibrium, when monomeric counterions to the surfactant ions are replaced by polymeric counterions. These pathways through the equilibrium phase diagrams thus “come alive” in the counterion polymerization processes performed here.

Graphical abstract: Phase diagrams come alive: understanding how to create, destroy or change ordered surfactant structures by polymerizing the counterions

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Article information

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1039/C0SM00958J
Article type
Paper
Submitted
09 Sep 2010
Accepted
17 Nov 2010
First published
20 Dec 2010

Soft Matter, 2011,7, 1830-1839

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Phase diagrams come alive: understanding how to create, destroy or change ordered surfactant structures by polymerizing the counterions

S. D. Santos, L. Piculell, O. J. Karlsson and M. da Graça Miguel, Soft Matter, 2011, 7, 1830 DOI: 10.1039/C0SM00958J

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