Dilational viscoelastic properties of fluid interfaces—III Mixed surfactant systems

Abstract

The surface viscosity and elasticity of solutions of mixed surfactants were determined using the longitudinal wave technique combined with tracer particle measurements. The recent analysis of Maru et al., which was restricted to insoluble monolayers and to monolayers adsorbed from a single surfactant solution, has now been extended to multicomponent solutions. This analysis can be used not only to estimate the “net” viscoelastic properties at gas-liquid interfaces but also to estimate the composition as well as the intrinsic viscoelastic properties. Furthermore, when accompanied by separate measurements of shear viscoelastic properties, the above analysis can be used for the determination of dilational viscosity and elasticity. Surface viscoelasticity measurements were conducted on aqueous solutions of sodium lauryl sulfate and sodium lauryl sulfate-lauryl alcohol. Net surface viscosity and elasticity of sodium lauryl sulfate solutions increased with bulk concentration and reached a maximum at a concentration in the neighborhood of the critical micelle concentration. The presence of small amount of lauryl alcohol caused almost an order of magnitude increase in intrinsic surface viscosity and a similar increase in compositional surface elasticity. A comparison between the values of intrinsic surface viscosity and those of surface shear viscosity indicated that surface dilational viscosity exceeds surface shear viscosity by at least two orders of magnitude. These appear to be the first set of data presented hitherto for the surface dilational properties in addition to surface shear properties for the same mixed surfactant systems.