Rapid and quantitative determination of critical micelle concentration by automatic continuous mixing and static light scattering

We present the rapid and quantitative characterization of ionic, non-ionic and zwitterionic surfactants based upon the combination of an automatic continuous mixing technique and static light scattering. Collection and subsequent analysis of data are both rapid and semiautomatic, which increases precision, sensitivity, and range of applicability while substantially decreasing the amount of manual intervention required by the investigator. By treating the continuous data, the entire data set may be rapidly analyzed in the context of the closed association model to determine the critical micelle concentration cmc and aggregation number Nag of a detergent; these technique are comparable in the scope and resolution currently obtainable from other conductimetric, fluorescence and surface tension techniques. (C) 2009 Published by Elsevier B.V.