Kinetics of metal ion complex formation in micellar media. A comparison between normal and polymerized micelles

Micellar media can be used to investigate the rate of complex formation between hydrophobic extractants and metal ions. Acceleration or retardation effects may be obtained, depending on factors such as the nature of the surfactant, the hydrophilic/lipophilic character and ionization state of the extractant, etc. The present work was aimed at studying the influence of some specific parameters in producing retardation effects, which have potential application for performing separation of metal ions on a kinetic basis. The stopped-flow technique was used to measure the rate of complex formation between Cu²⁺ and complexing agents with varying alkyl chain length. Micelles made of the nonionic surfactants C₁₂EO₆, Triton X-100 and Brij 35 were first considered, which did not show any direct correlation between the rate of complex formation and the thickness of the hydrophilic layer constituted by the polar heads of the surfactant molecules.In a second approach, we have used polymerized micelles obtained from undec-10-enyltrimethyl ammonium bromide, which we assumed to be more rigid than normal micelles. Although the absence of CMC was confirmed, the rates measured in these polymerized micelles were larger than those obtained in micellar solutions of CTAB and DTAB. The results are discussed in relation with the nature of the hydrophobic domains in the different situations.Institut Nancéien de Chimie Moléculaire (I.N.C.M.), FU CNRS n=8