Micellar size effect

Therefore, the nonlinear relationship between rate of polymerization and the total surfactant concentration, as shown in Figure 2, was believed to be caused by a change in micellar size. Thus, the purpose of the present study was to verify the validity of the concept of micellar size effect in emulsion polymerization kinetics. Furthermore, although the Harkins-Smith-Ewart theory of micellar nucleation was proposed in 1948, and has found widespread application ever since, its validity is still challenged even for the case of polymerization of styrene ( ). If micellar... 

The basic concept of the present study was to show, other things being equal, that the rate of polymerization is affected by the size of the micelles and not by the total surfactant concentration as expressed by Equation (l). This micellar size effect was believed to be the reason why a nonlinear, i.e., a convex curve, relationship between In Rp and In Cg was obtained with emulsion polymerization systems of changing surfactant... 

Since the x-value in the relationship of Rp oc Cg depends on the size of monomer-swollen micelles and the latter is, in turn, related to the solubilizing power of the monomer-free micelles and the hydrophobic properties of the monomers, the "micellar size effect" should predict the following ... 

Therefore, the "micellar size effect" offers, at least, an explanation for the variations observed in the x-values in emulsion polymerization with various monomer-surfactant combinations. Verification of this argument in detail is under investigation, however, and discussion of these results is beyond the scope of the present paper. 

IV. Hypothesis of Micellar Size Effect on Nucleation. Confirmation of the Hypothesis. ... 

Experimental results and interpretations so far presented lead to the justification of proposing a hypothesis concerning the micellar size effect on particle nucleation in mixed surfactant systems of emulsion polymerization. Essentials of this hypothesis are as follows ... 

In general, we can summarize micellar size effects for nonionics as follows ... 

Micellar properties are affected by changes in the environment, eg, temperature, solvents, electrolytes, and solubilized components. These changes include compHcated phase changes, viscosity effects, gel formation, and Hquefication of Hquid crystals. Of the simpler changes, high concentrations of water-soluble alcohols in aqueous solution often dissolve micelles and in nonaqueous solvents addition of water frequendy causes a sharp increase in micellar size. 

Recently, Porter et al. (1986b, 1988) have reported the synthesis of both meso- and ( )-forms of a series of two-chain carbonyl diacids made by joining two pentadecanoic acid units by a carbonyl group at the 3,3, 6,6, 9,9 and 12,12 positions, 3,5-didodecyl-4-oxoheptanedioic acid (C-15 3,3 ), 6,8-dinonyl-7-oxotridecanedioic acid (C-15 6,6 ), 9,11-dihexyl-10-oxononadecanedioic acid (C-15 9,9 ) and 12,14-dipropyl-13-oxopentacosanedioic acid (C-15 12,12 ), respectively. The diacids were used to probe further the question of stereochemical preference in two-chain amphiphiles. The method used for examining the diastereomeric preference was equilibration by base-catalyzed epimerization in homogeneous, bilayer and micellar media. This method allows for stereoselection based on hydrophobic/hydrophilic considerations rather than classic steric size effects. 

We have no measurements of micellar size, since the translation of micelle size into the number of monomers in the micelle is not a simple task and requires assumptions not easily experimentally tested. We are hopeful of extending experimentation in this direction in future research. Table II lists dielectric constants, dipole moments and effective polarities for methanol, 1- and 2-octanol, and water at 25°C. 

Caution should be exercised when considering temperature effects on solubilization by micelles, since the aqueous solubility of the solute and thus its micelle/water partition coefLcient can also change in response to temperature changes. For example, it has been reported that although tt solubility of benzoic acid in a series of polyoxyethylene nonionic surfactants increases with temperature, the micelle/water partition coefLci rt, shows a minimum at 2C, presumably due to the increase in the aqueous solubility of benzoic acid (Humphreys and Rhodes, 1968). The increasr in Km with increasing temperature was attributed to an increase in micellar size, as the cloud point temperature of the surfactant is approached (Humphreys and Rhodes, 1968). 

D. Attwood, Light-scattering study of the effect of temperature on the micellar size and shape of a nonionic detergent in aqueous solution, J. Phys. Chem. 72 (1968) 339-345. 

Synthesis of oil soluble micellar calcium thiophosphate was performed in a one-step process involving the reaction of calcium oxide, tetraphosphorus decasulfide and water in the presence of an alkylaryl sulfonic acid. This product could be defined as a calcium thiophosphate hard-core surrounded by a calcium alkylarylsulphonate shell in accordance with a reverse micelle type association in oil. Three micellar products with the same chemical nature core were prepared, each with different core/shell ratio of 0.44, 0.92 and 1.54. Better performances are expected with products of higher core/shell ratios. The antiwear performance of micellar calcium carbonates is directly linked to the size of the mineral CaC03 colloidal particles. At a concentration of 2 % micellar cores, no antiwear effect is observed whatever the micellar size. At an intermediate concentration of 4 % of micellar cores, the wear scar diameter is clearly dependent on the micellar size, slipping from 1.70 mm to 1.10 mm, then to 0.79 mm when the core diameter moves from 4.37 nm to 6.07 nm, then to 6.78 nm. Size dependence is increased at a concentration of 5 % in colloidal cores. This clearly confirms the size dependence of the micellar cores on their antiwear performance (Delfort et al.,... 

Systematic studies on micellar size and structure have been published for poly(styrene-h-acrylic acid) (PS-PAAc) [7, 8], poly(styrene-fr-sodium acrylate) (PS-PAAcNa) [9], or quaternized poly(styrene-h-4-vinyl-pyridine) (PS-P4VPMeI) [10, 11]. It was concluded that the polyelectrolyte chains in the micellar corona are almost fully stretched [8]. The effect of salt concentration was investigated by Guenoun et al. on poly(f-butylstyrene-fr-sodium styrene sulfonate) (PtBS-PSSNa) who observed a weak decrease of micellar size and aggregation number when the salt concentration was increased beyond 0.01 mol/1 [12]. Using small-angle neutron scattering (SANS), the authors could provide additional support for the rod-like conformation of the polyelectrolyte chains in the micellar corona [13]. 

Table II. Effect of Radiation Dose on the Polydispersity of Micellar Size in Solutions of Varying Concentration...

The effect of temperature on the distribution of micellar sizes in a 10% irradiated solution is shown in Figure 8. This figure, which is typical of size distribution curves obtained for all the irradiated samples and also for non-irradiated samples with concentrations in excess of 5%, shows an initial narrowing of the size distribution with temperature increase followed by a further broadening as the temperature reaches 40° C. (see Table IV). 

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