A molecular‐thermodynamic approach to predict the micellization of binary surfactant mixtures containing amino sulfonate amphoteric surfactant and nonionic surfactant

Abstract

A molecular‐thermodynamic approach was adopted to predict the value of mixed critical micelle concentration (cmc) for the binary surfactant mixtures constituted by an amino sulfonate amphoteric surfactant, sodium 3‐(N‐dodecyl ethylenediamino)‐2‐hydropropyl sulfonate (abbr. C12AS), and a nonionic surfactant, octylphenol polyethylene ether (OP‐n, where n denotes the average number of oxyethylene glycol ether). In this investigation, considering two positive charges on the hydrophilic group of C12AS, which is unlike to conventional zwitterionic surfactants having one positive charge (such as, alkylbetaine, etc.), three schemes were designed to obtain the geometric parameter describing the dipole structure of C12AS. According to the selected optimum scheme, four cases corresponding to the different conformations of both the headgroup and the hydrocarbon chain of surfactant were discussed. The results show that the predicted value of mixed cmc for the C12AS/OP‐n mixtures agrees well with the experiment value. The deviation of the predicted value from the experimental value can be explained by the effect of the hydrophilicity of OP‐n on the process of micellization. © 2017 American Institute of Chemical Engineers AIChE J, 2017