Rheological and microstructural properties of micellar solutions

Surfactant solutions are of immense scientific and technological interest. They can self-assemble into wide variety of interesting and highly dynamic nanostructures including spherical, cylindrical, vesicle, worm-like or lamellar type. Micellar solutions typically contain surfactants and salts that are dissolved in water. Beyond a critical micelle concentration, the addition of salt or surfactant transforms spherical micelles to isolated rod-like micelles (in dilute regime) that at sufficiently high concentrations of salt and surfactant (in the semi-dilute regime), form entangled worm-like micelles. The projects aim at understanding the relationship between the microstructure-process-property for micellar solutions that have a broad range of applications such as detergents, paints, and lubricants. The project will be performed through employing rheological characterizations. The expected outcomes are the detailed models describing the change in the rheological properties and microstructures in the micellar solutions as a function of processing parameters such as temperatures and shear rates.

Faculty Supervisor:

Ehsan Behzadfar

Student:

Partner:

Florida State University

Discipline:

Engineering

Sector:

Education

University:

Lakehead University

Program: