Hydrophobic terminal group of surfactant initiating micellization as revealed by 1H NMR spectroscopy

The critical aggregation concentration (CAC) of four with three kinds of conventional surfactants, namely, two cationic surfactants hexadecyltrimethyl ammonium bromide (CTAB) and tetradecyltrimethyl ammonium bromide (TTAB)], one anionic surfactant sodium dodecyl sulfate (SDS)], and a nonionic surfactant Triton X-100 (TX-100)], were determined by variation of ¹H chemical shifts with surfactant concentrations. Results show that the CAC values of protons at different positions of the same molecule are different, and those of the terminal methyl protons are the lowest, respectively, which suggests that the terminal groups of the alkyl chains aggregates first during micellization. Measurement of the transverse relaxation time (T₂) of different protons in SDS also show that the terminal methyl protons start to decrease with the increase in concentration first, which supports the above mentioned tendency.