Issue 8, 2011

Microemulsions from silicone oil with an anionic/nonionic surfactant mixture

Abstract

Microemulsion phases have been prepared for the first time from the silicone oil “M2” (hexamethyldisiloxane) and a surfactant mixture of a nonionic surfactant “IT 3” (isotridecyltriethyleneglycolether) and an ionic surfactant Ca(DS)2 (calciumdodecylsulfate). For such a surfactant mixture the hydrophilicity of the system can be tuned by the mixing ratio of the two components. With increasing IT 3 content, the surfactant mixtures show a L1-phase, a wide Lα-region and a narrow L3 sponge phase. For constant temperature, two single phase channels exist in the microemulsion system. The lower channel (low IT 3 content) ends in the middle of the phase diagram with equal amounts of water and oil, the upper channel begins with the L3-phase and passes all the way to the oil phase. Conductivity data show that the upper channel has a bi-continuous morphology up to 40% oil while the lower channel consists of oil droplets in water. In contrast to previous studies on nonionic systems, the two single phase channels are not connected and microemulsions with equal amount of oil and water do not have a bicontinuous structure.

Graphical abstract: Microemulsions from silicone oil with an anionic/nonionic surfactant mixture

Supplementary files

Article information

Article type
Paper
Submitted
30 Mar 2010
Accepted
02 Dec 2010
First published
05 Jan 2011

Phys. Chem. Chem. Phys., 2011,13, 3248-3256

Microemulsions from silicone oil with an anionic/nonionic surfactant mixture

L. Wolf, H. Hoffmann, K. Watanabe and T. Okamoto, Phys. Chem. Chem. Phys., 2011, 13, 3248 DOI: 10.1039/C0CP00062K

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