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Updated: Feb 4, 2026

Studying Surfactant Effects on Hydrate Crystallization at Oil-Water Interfaces Using a Low-Cost Integrated Modular Peltier Device
Published on: March 18, 2020
Oil-induced formation of branched wormlike micelles in an alcohol propoxysulfate extended surfactant system
Francis Choi1, Edgar J Acosta1
1Department of Chemical Engineering and Applied Chemistry, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada. edgar.acosta@utoronto.ca.
Abstract:
The addition of oil to an extended surfactant-water system (sodium tetrapropylene glycol (2-ethyl)octyl ether sulfate, C10PO4SO4Na) induces the elongation of spherical micelles into oil-swollen branched wormlike micelles (WLMs) near the phase inversion point of the surfactant-oil-water (SOW) system. The hydrophilic-lipophilic-difference (HLD) framework, which has been associated with surfactant curvature, was successfully used to predict the conditions under which WLMs are produced for both polar and non-polar oils. At HLD = 0, the formation of low-curvature surfactant structures including WLMs and liquid crystals are favored in water-rich systems. Micellar growth begins around HLD = -0.5, and reaches a plateau upon the formation of a branched WLM network at HLD = 0. Above the entanglement concentration, the branched WLMs exhibit Maxwell and shear thinning behavior which is suitable for the suspension of nanoparticles, among others.
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