Effects of Solvent Media and Temperature on the Self-Aggregation of Cationic Dimeric Surfactant 14−6−14, 2Br− Studied by Conductometric and Fluorescence Techniques

Abstract

To explore how the solvent characteristics influence the self-aggregation of the cationic dimeric surfactant hexamethylene-1,6-bis(tetradecyldimethylammonium bromide) (14-6-14, 2Br(-)) and to obtain various energetic parameters, conductometric experiments were performed on the binary mixtures of three organic solvents--viz., 2-methoxyethanol (ME)-, acetonitrile (AN)-, and formamide (FA)- water (WR) at different temperatures ranging from 298.15 to 323.15 K. The steady state fluorescence measurements allowed us to calculate the average aggregation number (N(agg)) and the air-bulk phase surface tension helped us to correlate the solvent cohesive energy density with Gibbs energy of micellization (DeltaG(0)(m)). The results showed that, although micellization process becomes less favorable with the increase in volume % of the ME, AN and FA in the binary mixed media, the increment in the cmc below 20% (v/v) of the organic solvents is comparatively less showing the predominance of WR character in the bulk phase. Because of the decrease in Gibbs interfacial energy contribution (DeltaG(0)(interf)) to DeltaG(0)(m), the average aggregation number (N(agg)) decreased with the increase in the volume % of the organic solvent in the mixed media. As the enthalpy of micellization became more negative, the corresponding entropy change became less positive and enthalpy-entropy compensation phenomenon was observed for the micellization of 14-6-14, 2Br(-) in all the mixed media in the studied temperature range.