Effect of 1-hexanol on the phase behavior of SDS/CTAB/NaBr/H2O system

Abstract

The influence of 1-hexanol on the phase behavior of sodium dodecyl sulfate (SDS)/cetyltrimethyl ammonium bromide (CTAB)/NaBr/H2O system has been systematically investigated in this paper. The results showed 1-hexanol effectively dissolved the precipitate formed by the CTAB and SDS surfactants, while liquid crystal (LC) and aqueous two phase system (ATPS) were formed in a wider range. When the molar ratio of 1-hexanol to surfactant is higher than 1, the precipitation in the system disappeared completely and was transformed into ATPS and LC, indicating that alcohol inserted at least evenly between every two surfactant molecules and hence effectively weakened the electrostatic interaction between the anionic and cationic surfactants and limited the formation of precipitation. Polarizing microscope (POM) with crossed polarizers was employed to investigate the textures of liquid crystals. It was shown that the existence of lamellar LC was confirmed by “Maltese crosses” textures. Additionally, we showed that the thermal stability of LC was promising. The ATPS and LC regions remained stable and changed slightly when the temperature was increased from 40 to 70 °C. The results indicated that ATPS and LC of the system were quiet resistant to temperature with the addition of 1-hexanol.