Speaker
Ms
Synne Myhre
(Department of Chemistry, University of Oslo)
Description
The kinetic processes involved in mixtures of surfactants and block copolymer micelles are not well understood. However, it is commonly known that surfactants exhibit rather fast equilibration kinetics, in the order of micro- to milliseconds, while polymers are much slower, in the order of minutes to months. In this contribution, we will present a study of the stability and solubilization kinetics of block copolymers micelles upon addition of sodium dodecyl sulphate (SDS) using small angle X-ray scattering (SAXS). We compare the ability of the surfactant to dissolve and form mixed micelles with two amphiphilic polymers; poly(ethylene propylene)-poly(ethylene oxide) (PEP-PEO) and end-capped PEO (C28-PEO). While the kinetics of C28PEO occurs on time scales on the order of minutes-hours on ambient temperatures, that of PEP1-PEO20 is known to be frozen on practical time scales. Addition of SDS to PEP1-PEO20 shows close to no change, even after extended period of time. However, upon addition of SDS to C28PEO5 we observe a fast dissolution and formation of mixed micelles, where the kinetics is seen to accelerate with the amount of added surfactant.
Primary author
Ms
Synne Myhre
(Department of Chemistry, University of Oslo)
Co-authors
Mr
Lutz Willner
(Forschungszentrum Jülich, Germany)
Prof.
Reidar Lund
(Department of Chemistry, University of Oslo)
