Solution behaviour of Aerosol OT in non-polar solvents

Abstract

The aggregational behaviour of Aerosol OT in non-polar solvents and the applications of these systems in various areas have been reviewed. Aerosol OT forms reverse micelles in oils without using any cosurfactant and the reverse micellar solution can dissolve large amounts of water with the formation of discrete droplet microemulsion or bicontinuous microemulsions. Due to their simplicity in the sense of the smallest number of components in the reverse micellar systems, these systems have been widely studied and have also been divergently applied. This review gives a detailed account of various aspects of Aerosol OT reverse micelles namely their aggregational, structural, conformational, dynamic and applications reported in the literature to date.