Effects of concentration and temperature on viscoelastic properties of aqueous potassium oleate solutions

The rheological properties of semidilute aqueous solutions containing long cylindrical micelles of an anionic surfactant, potassium oleate, are studied. It is shown that, at surfactant concentrations above 1 wt %, the rheological properties of the solutions are adequately described in terms of the simple Maxwell model of a viscoelastic liquid characterized by a single relaxation time. Based on the analysis of normalized dependences of the loss modulus on the storage modulus, the characteristic times of the processes governing the rheological properties of the above systems, i.e., the average breaking time and reptation time of micelles, are estimated. It is found that the breaking time of micelles decreases and relaxation time increases with increasing surfactant concentration due to lengthening of micellar chains.