Analysis of an old controversy: The compensation temperature for micellization of surfactants

M Pilar Vázquez-Tato; Francisco Meijide; Julio A Seijas; Francisco Fraga; José Vázquez Tato

doi:10.1016/j.cis.2018.03.003

Analysis of an old controversy: The compensation temperature for micellization of surfactants

Adv Colloid Interface Sci. 2018 Apr:254:94-98. doi: 10.1016/j.cis.2018.03.003. Epub 2018 Mar 17.

Authors

M Pilar Vázquez-Tato¹, Francisco Meijide², Julio A Seijas¹, Francisco Fraga³, José Vázquez Tato⁴

Affiliations

¹ Departamento de Química Orgánica, Facultad de Ciencias, Universidad de Santiago de Compostela, Avda. Alfonso X El Sabio s/n, 27002 Lugo, Spain.
² Departamento de Química Física, Facultad de Ciencias, Universidad de Santiago de Compostela, Avda. Alfonso X El Sabio s/n, 27002 Lugo, Spain.
³ Departamento de Física Aplicada, Facultad de Ciencias, Universidad de Santiago de Compostela, Avda. Alfonso X El Sabio s/n, 27002 Lugo, Spain.
⁴ Departamento de Química Física, Facultad de Ciencias, Universidad de Santiago de Compostela, Avda. Alfonso X El Sabio s/n, 27002 Lugo, Spain. Electronic address: jose.vazquez@usc.es.

PMID: 29580548
DOI: 10.1016/j.cis.2018.03.003

Abstract

The actual significance of the so-called compensation temperature T_c for micellization of surfactants is reviewed. It is demonstrated that it is possible to obtain as many T_c values as the number of temperature intervals in which the dependencies of enthalpy and entropy changes with temperature are analyzed. The value of each T_c will be the central value T_o of each temperature interval. These two facts suggest that T_c is simply such experimental T_o. Thus any physical interpretation derived from T_c is unfounded.

Keywords: Compensation temperature; Demicellization; Enthalpy-entropy compensation; Isothermal titration calorimetry; Surfactants.

Publication types

Review