What is it about?
This study uses fluorescence correlation spectroscopy (FCS) to investigate how wormlike micelles form in mixtures of cetyltrimethylammonium bromide (CTAB) and sodium salicylate (NaSal). The researchers reveal unique insights into the process, including the coexistence of spherical and wormlike micelles, and how micelle size and number depend on the surfactant and salt concentration.
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Why is it important?
Wormlike micelles are widely used in cosmetics, pharmaceuticals, and materials science due to their unique properties. Understanding their formation at the molecular level can improve the design of micelle-based systems for specific applications. This study demonstrates the power of single-molecule techniques to uncover details missed by traditional ensemble experiments: (i) at extremely low concentrations of the surfactant, [CTAB]/[NaSal] ∼ 0.06, the wormlike micelle attains the highest size; and (ii) the relative concentration of wormlike micelles is highest when [CTAB]/[NaSal] ∼ 2.
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This page is a summary of: Tracking Wormlike Micelle Formation in Solution: Unique Insight through Fluorescence Correlation Spectroscopic Study, Langmuir, February 2022, American Chemical Society (ACS),
DOI: 10.1021/acs.langmuir.1c02936.
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