Investigation of micelle formation by N-(diethyleneglycol) perfluorooctane amide fluorocarbon surfactant as a foaming agent in aqueous solution

Abstract

Micelles formed by nonionic fluorocarbon surfactant N-(diethyleneglycol) perfluorooctane amide as a foaming agent due to its excellent foaming performance in aqueous solution were studied through surface tension, dynamic light scattering, isothermal titration calorimetry, and dissipative particle dynamic simulation. The surface activity, adsorption, and thermodynamic parameters (ΔG⁰_m, ΔG⁰_ads, ΔH⁰_m, ΔS⁰_m, ΔH^A_m, ΔC⁰_p,m) of micellization were systematically investigated. The experimental results showed that this nonionic fluorocarbon surfactant had superior surface activity and the micelle formation was entropy-driven. The micelle formation was also demonstrated by dynamic light scattering and isothermal titration calorimetry. Furthermore, to better understand the micelle formation, dissipative particle dynamic (DPD) simulation was conducted to simulate the whole formation process.