Effect of Benzyl Alcohol on the Properties of CTAB/KBr Micellar Systems

There is now very strong evidence for a micellar phase in several aqueous cationic surfactant systems in the presence of added salt, such as cetyltrimethylammonium bromide or chloride (CTAB or CTAC) with added KBr or sodium salicylate (NaSal), cetylpyridinium bromide (CPyBr)+KBr, ce-tylpyridinium salicylate (CPySal)+NaSal, etc. The viscosity of these systems can be controlled between 0.001 and 100 Pa s at low values of surfactant concentration. In addition, such micellar systems are highly elastic. The last few years have seen growing interest in the structure and size of the micelles in salt solution and their rheological properties [1-14]. The numbers of papers and conferences dealing with this topic have considerably increased; however, there has beenrelatively little work concerning the effect of additives on the micellar properties of these systems [15]. In this chapter we will show the influences of benzyl alcohol on the shape and size of the micelles in the CTAB/KBr solutions and their rheological properties.