Effect of inorganic additives on solution of non-ionic surfactants : CMCS and surface properties Hans schott ,suk kyu Han

Continuing the work on the interaction of inorganic additives with non ionic surfactants in aqueous solution dealt withtheir effect on the CMC and surface tension. The surfactants were octoxynol and polyoxyethylated oleyl alcohol, containing an avg of 9.5 to10 ethylene oxides respectively. Their cmc values were lowered by most electrolytes studied, representing salting out of the surfactants. The sttepest reductions in the CMC were produced by the nitrates of sodium and potassium, which had been found to lower the cloud poins of non ionic surfactants, salting them out because of the inability of their cations to form complexes with ether oxygen linkages of polyoxyyethylene moieties. However, even electrolytes with cations such as hydrogen,lithium,calcium,lead and aluminium capable of forming complexes with ether oxygens, there by increasing the cloud poins of the surfactants, lowered their CMC values. In the presence of increasing in concentrations of the latter electrolytes, the CMC values frequently went through minima and approached the CMC of surfactant in the absence of additives . increase in the CMC over entire range of additive concentration investigated were produced by cadmium nitrate for octooxynol, urea for polyoxyethylated oleyl alcohol, and magnissium nitrate for both.net increase in the plateau or micellar surface tensionof polyoxyethylated oleyl alcohol, i.e , in the constant surface tensionof surfactant solutions above the CMC, were brought above the nitrates of cadmium,aluminium, and magnesium at low concentrations only by urea at all concentrations. this increase is interpreted as salting in. the area per surfactant molecule at air water interface was reduced by all added electrolytes. Urea caused no such reduction.

Hans schott*, suk kyu Han, Volume 65, issue 7, pages 975-978 July 1976