Associative Thickeners polyacrylamides

In the first system, the hydrophobic monomer included in the SDS micelle is polymerized in the same polymer chain, but most of the SDS is relarged in the serum in the second system, the hydrophilic part of the surfmer remains associated with the main polymer chain (Fig. 4). In contrast, if the surfmer is mixed with a nonpolymerizable surfactant, the surfmer xmits are randomly distributed in the polyacrylamide polymer (Fig. 5). Surprisingly, the thickening efficiency of that last system is a thousand times higher than the former, it is suggested that the difference is due to the intramolecular nature of the hydrophobic interactions, when the micelles contain the surfmer only. 

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