A viscometric and conductometric investigation of the micellar and solution properties of two-headed surfactant systems, the disodium 4-alkyl-3-sulfonatosuccinates

Abstract

A family of two-headed surfactants, the disodium 4-alkyl-3-sulfonatosuccinates, has been prepared by reacting maleic anhydride with the appropriate chain-length alcohol and subsequent addition of sodium bisulfite to the corresponding monoester. The properties of the micelles formed by these compounds in aqueous solution (aggregation numbers, degrees of counterion binding, and the cmc values) have been investigated as a function of temperature and surfactant chain length using viscosity, density, and conductance measurements. The critical micelle concentrations (cmc's) and the aggregation numbers appear to indicate that, in agreement with the earlier literature on other two-headed surfactants systems, these amphiphiles have higher cmc and lower aggregation numbers when compared to single-headed surfactants of comparable chain length. In addition, viscosity B coefficients and the thermodynamic parameters of activation of viscous flow have been determined. These results are interpreted in terms of the structure-making or -breaking properties of the surfactant amphiphiles below the cmc region. Finally, the thermodynamic properties of micelle formation have been estimated from the dependence of the cmc on the absolute temperature according to the charged pseudo-phase separation model of micelle formation. All these results are discussed in terms of how the addition of the second charged surfactant headgroup alters the micellar and solution properties of two-headed surfactants vs. their single-headed counterparts.