Chemical equilibrium model for the thermodynamic properties of mixed aqueous micellar systems: Application to thermodynamic functions of transfer

Mixed micelles can be formed in water between various pairs of hydrophobic solutes such as surfactants, alcohols and hydrocarbons. These systems can often be studied through the thermodynamic functions of transfer of one of the solutes, usually kept near infinite dilution, from water to an aqueous solution of the other solute. When mixed micelles are formed, these functions change significantly, and often go through extrema, in the region where the binary system micellizes or undergoes some microphase transition.Three main effects are responsible for the observed trends: pair-wise interactions between both solutes in the monomeric form, a distribution of the reference solute between the aqueous and micellar phases and a shift in the monomer-micelle equilibrium in the vicinity of the reference solute. Simple equations can be derived for these three effects which can account for the sign and magnitude of the observed trends using parameters which are derived for the most part from the two binary systems.