Paper Number
PO18 

Session
Poster Session

Title
Specific salt effects on equilibrium and flow structure of wormlike micelles

Presentation Date and Time
October 12, 2022 (Wednesday) 6:30

Track / Room
Poster Session / Riverwalk A

Authors (Click on name to view author profile)

1. Alawami, Nour S. (University of Tulsa, Chemical Engineering)
2. Javen, Weston S. (University of Tulsa, Chemical Engineering)
3. Weigandt, Katie M. (National Institute of Standards and Technology, Center for Neutron Research)

Author and Affiliation Lines (in printed abstract book)
Nour S. Alawami¹, Weston S. Javen¹ and Katie M. Weigandt^2
1Chemical Engineering, University of Tulsa, Tulsa, OK 74104; ²Center for Neutron Research, National Institute of Standards and Technology, Gaithersburg, MD 20877

Speaker / Presenter 
Alawami, Nour S.

Keywords
surfactants

Text of Abstract
Adding a dissolved salt to aqueous solutions of surfactant molecules is a well-understood method of altering how the molecules self-assemble into micelles. In a certain range of salt and surfactant concentrations, the most energetically favorable micelle shape is a long, flexible cylindrical micelle referred to as a ‘wormlike’ micelle. In this work, we show that a variety of simple salts can be used to independently control the contour length and persistence length (stiffness) of a model wormlike micelle system. Static neutron scattering was used to determine the micelle persistence length, and RheoSANS measurement are used to measure the segmental alignment of the micelles under shear flow conditions. We also develop a semi-empirical model to explain the relative importance of micelle stiffness, micelle length, and degree of entanglement on the onset of segmental alignment in these systems, and gain further insight into the fundamental physics of wormlike micelle solutions.