Krafft Temperature, Critical Micelle Concentration, and Rheology of “Pseudo‐Gemini” Surfactant Comprising Fatty Acid Soap and Bola‐Type Quaternary Ammonium Salt

Abstract

AbstractBola‐type quaternary ammonium salt can bridge with two fatty acid soaps through electrostatic attraction to form a pseudogemini surfactant, which enhances the solution viscosity. In this work, the effects of the building blocks (spacer and hydrophobic chain) of a pseudogemini surfactant on the Krafft temperature, critical micelle concentration, and rheological properties were investigated. The results revealed that the addition of bola‐type salt obviously decreased the Krafft temperature of sodium stearate (C18ONa), and a bola‐type salt bearing a large benzene ring (Bola2be) was more effective than the one bearing an ethyl group (Bola2et) or a hydroxyethyl group (Bola2hy). When bola‐type salt is mixed with fatty acid soap at a fixed molar ratio of 1:2, a pseudogemini surfactant forms in situ, and the viscosity of the solution is significantly enhanced by the formation of a worm‐like micelle (WLM) network. The stronger the hydrophobicity of the bola‐type salt or the tail of the fatty acid soap, the lower the critical overlapping and micelle concentrations, and the stronger is the ability to enhance viscosity. However, pseudogemini surfactants that use sodium stearate as a monomer show similar self‐assembly abilities to those using sodium oleate as a monomer. In addition, the WLM formed by pseudogemini surfactants composed of Bola2be and sodium stearate or sodium oleate were liable to branch at high concentrations.