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Soft Matter and Biological Physics

Eur. Phys. J. E 3, 111-121

Scattering properties of salt-free wormlike micellar solutions

M. Bellour - A. Knaebel - J.P. Munch - S.J. Candau

Laboratoire de Dynamique des Fluides Complexes, U.M.R. no. 7506, C.N.R.S., U.L.P., 4 rue Blaise Pascal, 67070 Strasbourg Cedex, France
candau@fresnel.u-strasbg.fr

Received 21 December 1999

Abstract
Static and dynamic light scattering and conductivity experiments were carried out on salt-free aqueous micellar solutions of cetyltrimethylammonium n-hexane sulfonate ( \ensuremath{\mathsf{CTAC_6SO_3}}) and cetyltrimethylammonium n-heptane sulfonate ( \ensuremath{\mathsf{CTAC_7SO_3}}) as a function of surfactant concentration. This study confirms the analogy between the behavior in the semi-dilute regime of elongated micellar systems and "classical'' polyelectrolyte solutions. Time-resolved scattering experiments performed after a variation of concentration from about twice the overlap volume fraction $\Phi^*$ to less than half of it revealed the existence of a structural relaxation with a characteristic time of several hours.

PACS
36.20.-r Macromolecules and polymer molecules - 61.25.Hq Macromolecular and polymer solutions; polymer melts; swelling - 82.70.-y Disperse systems

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