Surfactant-based gels.
This article reviews known approaches to generating viscoelastic and gel-like surfactant systems focusing on how the formation of these viscous phases are often sensitive to a variety of chemical and physio-chemical factors. An understanding of this sensitivity is essential for generating high viscosity surfactant phases in more challenging solvent environments. The initial focus is on the generation of worm-like and reverse worm-like micelles. In addition, other approaches for using surfactant self-assembly for viscosity enhancement have been examined, namely gelatin microemulsion based organogels and the addition of substituted phenols to AOT reverse micelles.
Department of Chemistry, University of Bristol, Cantock's Close, Bristol BS8 1TS, United Kingdom.
Kieran
K
Trickett
Julian
J
Eastoe