Nuclear magnetic resonance and small-angle X-ray scattering studies of mixed sodium dodecyl sulfate and N,N-dimethyldodecylamine N-oxide aqueous systems performed at low temperatures

Using Raman Spectroscopy and Molecular Dynamics to Study Conformation Changes of Sodium Lauryl Ether Sulfate Molecules

A study using both Raman spectroscopy and molecular dynamics (MD) simulations was carried out for alkyl ethoxysulfate (AES) surfactants at various concentrations in solution. Direct comparison between experiment and simulation shows that the conformational changes observed in MD are in good agreement with those obtained via Raman spectroscopy. We show that there is an increase in the relative number of trans conformations with increasing concentration and illustrate the relationship between phase structure and molecular conformation, which is often speculated but difficult to confirm. Our results open up the possibility of applying MD to other surfactants, with the aim of analyzing conformational behavior, which can typically be difficult to study experimentally using spectroscopy methods, due to large numbers of vibrational modes present in large complex molecules.

Co-assembly and Structure of Sodium Dodecylsulfate and other n-Alkyl Sulfates in Glycerol: n-Alkyl Sulfate-Glycerol Crystal Phase

HYPOTHESIS

Following the observation of a microfibrillar phase in sodium dodecylsulfate (SDS)-glycerol mixtures, it is hypothesized that this phase is a crystalline structure containing SDS and glycerol, where the interaction between sulfate and glycerol layers mediates the co-assembly, which also could be universal for similar systems formed by n-alkyl sulfate homologues. Experiment. n-alkyl sulfate glycerol solutions were studied using a combination of optical microscopy, small- and wide-angle X-ray scattering (SAXS/WAXS). Time-resolved SAXS was employed to determine the phase formation in SDS-glycerol-water mixtures.

FINDINGS

The microfibrillar crystalline phase was reproduced in even-chained n-alkyl sulfates with a chain length between 12 and 18 carbon atoms, where the phase lamellar period increased uniformly with the alkyl chain length. Reconstruction of electron density profiles from the diffraction patterns allowed the lamellar structural motif of the phase, the glycerol location and stoichiometry to be determined. When SDS-glycerol-water mixtures with water concentration below 6 wt% are isothermally solidified at 20 °C, SDS-glycerol crystals and/or anhydrous SDS form, where the former is inhibited by the latter at higher water concentrations. The learnings from the SDS-glycerol phase formation allows new gels to be created, utilising the glycerol-sulfate motif generating microfibrils. This expands the knowledge of the applicable formulation space for SDS-water containing mixtures.

I22: SAXS/WAXS beamline at Diamond Light Source - an overview of 10 years operation

Beamline I22 at Diamond Light Source is dedicated to the study of soft-matter systems from both biological and materials science. The beamline can operate in the range 3.7 keV to 22 keV for transmission SAXS and 14 keV to 20 keV for microfocus SAXS with beam sizes of 240 µm × 60 µm [full width half-maximum (FWHM) horizontal (H) × vertical (V)] at the sample for the main beamline, and approximately 10 µm × 10 µm for the dedicated microfocusing platform. There is a versatile sample platform for accommodating a range of facilities and user-developed sample environments. The high brilliance of the insertion device source on I22 allows structural investigation of materials under extreme environments (for example, fluid flow at high pressures and temperatures). I22 provides reliable access to millisecond data acquisition timescales, essential to understanding kinetic processes such as protein folding or structural evolution in polymers and colloids.

Pure and mixed aqueous micellar solutions of Sodium Dodecyl sulfate (SDS) and Dimethyldodecyl Amine Oxide (DDAO): Role of temperature and composition

Aqueous mixtures of anionic and nonionic/cationic surfactants can form non-trivial self-assemblies in solution and exhibit macroscopic responses. Here, we investigate the micellar phase of pure and mixed aqueous solutions of Sodium Dodecyl Sulfate (SDS) and Dimethyldodecyl Amine Oxide (DDAO) using a combination of Small Angle Neutron Scattering (SANS), Fourier-Transform Infrared Spectroscopy (FTIR) and rheological measurements. We examine the effect of temperature (0-60 °C), on the 20 wt% SDS micellar solutions with varying DDAO (⩽5 wt%), and seek to correlate micellar structure with zero-shear solution viscosity. SANS establishes the formation of prolate ellipsoidal micelles in aqueous solutions of pure SDS, DDAO and SDS/DDAO mixtures, whose axial ratio is found to increase upon cooling. Elongation of the ellipsoidal micelles of pure SDS is also induced by the introduction of the non-anionic DDAO, which effectively reduces the repulsive interactions between the anionic SDS head-groups. In FTIR measurements, the formation of elongated mixed ellipsoidal micelles is confirmed by the increase of ordering in the hydrocarbon chain tails and interaction between surfactant head-groups. We find that the zero-shear viscosity of the mixed surfactant solutions increases exponentially with decreasing temperature and increasing DDAO content. Significantly, a master curve for solution viscosity can be obtained in terms of micellar aspect ratio, subsuming the effects of both temperature and DDAO composition in the experimental range investigated. The intrinsic viscosity of mixed micellar solutions is significantly larger than the analytical and numerical predictions for Brownian suspensions of ellipsoidal colloids, highlighting the need to consider interactions of soft micelles under shear, especially at high concentrations.