Critical micelle concentration competitive adsorption

The pseudophase-separation model for surfactant solutions (84, 132, 135) states that a surfactant solution above its critical micelle concentration (CMC) consists of two pseudophases in equilibrium with each other singly dispersed surfactant monomer molecules and micelles. When the surfactant solution is in contact with a solid, the adsorbed phase constitutes a third pseudophase (40). Strong experimental evidence suggests that surfactant adsorption takes place from the surfactant monomer phase but not from the micelles (84), behavior that leads to competition of both the micelles and the adsorbed phase for surfactant molecules from the monomer phase. Adsorption from a surfactant solution above the CMC then depends not only on the affinity of the surfactant for the solid surface but also on its tendency to form micelles. If a mixture can be formulated such that at least one of the surfactants is incorporated into micelles preferentially over the adsorbed phase, then the micelles act as a sink for the surfactant and thus prevent it from being adsorbed. 

The ambient medium impairs the effectiveness of microbicides also if its constituents include those capable of interacting with a microbicide in competition with the constituents of the microbe cell. This is true of electrophilically active microbicides in general as far as the ambient medium contains nucleophilically active constituents with which the microbicide can react in competition with the corresponding cell constituents. It is also true, however, of membrane-active microbicides if adsorption of the microbicide on organic matter competes with the adsorptive processes on the cytoplasmic membrane or if such microbicides, e.g. phenol derivatives, become incorporated in micelles that are formed in certain media at levels above the critical micelle concentration with the result that the incorporated active substance molecules are no longer available for the antimicrobial effect (see III. 16, Fig. 34). 

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