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Updated: Jul 19, 2026

Controlling the Size, Shape and Stability of Supramolecular Polymers in Water
Published on: August 2, 2012
Positional isomers of linear sodium dodecyl benzene sulfonate: solubility, self-assembly, and air/water interfacial
Jian-Guo Ma1, Ben J Boyd, Calum J Drummond
1CSIRO Molecular and Health Technologies, Bag 10, Clayton, Victoria, 3169, Australia.
Abstract:
Commercial linear alkyl benzene sulfonates (ABS) are a very important class of anionic surfactants that are employed in a wide variety of applications, especially those involving wetting and detergency. Linear ABS surfactants generally consist of a complex mixture of different chain lengths and positional isomers. This diversity and level of complexity makes it difficult to develop fundamental structure-property correlations for the commercial surfactants. In this work, six monodisperse headgroup positional isomers of sodium para-dodecyl benzene sulfonate (Na-x-DBS, x = 1-6) have been studied. The influence of headgroup position and added electrolyte (NaCl) on the solubility and self-assembly (micellar and vesicular aggregation and lyotropic liquid crystalline phase behavior) in the temperature range from 10 to 90 degrees C have been investigated. Additionally, the air-aqueous solution interfacial adsorption at 25 (no added NaCl) and 50 degrees C (from 0 to 1.0 M added NaCl) has been examined. The observed physicochemical behavior is interpreted in terms of local molecular packing constraints, and in the case of the lyotropic liquid crystalline behavior global aggregate packing constraints as well.
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Solubility
A solution is a homogeneous mixture composed of a solvent, the major component, and a solute, the minor component. The physical state of a solution—solid, liquid, or gas—is typically the same as that of the solvent. Solute concentrations are often described with qualitative terms such as dilute (of relatively low concentration) and concentrated (of relatively high concentration).
In a solution, the solute particles (molecules, atoms, and/or ions)...
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