Correlation of nonionic surfactant structure and solubility with textile wetting

Abstract

The effect of nonionic surfaetant structure with respect to textile wetting efficiency has been studied. A correlation has been shown to exist between wetting speed and molecular diffusion rate, critical micelle concentration, area per molecule (as deduced from surface tension versus concentration measurements), extent of adsorption and temperature. The slope of the log wetting time versus log concentration curve is dependent upon temperature, cloud point, critical micelle concentration and area per molecule. Log concentration for ten-second wetting is shown to be inversely proportional to the diffusion constant which in turn is a function of the critical mieelle concentration. Concentration coefficients of wetting indicate that the most efficient wetting is obtained at or very near to the criticaI micelle concentration.

Binding of counterions by micelles of ionic surfactants

“…Solution of Eq. (2) relative to c m and c 11 yields As was disclosed in several independent studies [6][7][8][9] and theoretically supported in [1], when the total content of surfactant in a solution increases, the concentration c 11 of free surface-active ions passes through a maximum at onset of micellization 1 and the c m ( c ) function is almost linear at c > CMC 0 .…”