Sol-gel Transition of Methylcellulose Solution in the Coexistence of Hexadecyltrimethylammonium Bromide and Sodium Chloride

The sol-gel transition of methylcellulose (MC) solution in the presence of NaCl and hexade-cyltrimethylammonium bromide (HTAB), together with MC/NaCl solution in the presence of HTAB and MC/HATB solution in the presence of NaCl, was investigated by the rheolog-ical measurements. It has been found that the sol-gel transition temperature of MC solution decreases linearly with the concentration of NaCl in solution but increases linearly with the concentration of HTAB in solution, respectively. However, the sol-gel transition temperature of MC/NaCl solution in the presence of HTAB keeps the same value, independent of theconcentration of HTAB in solution. On the other hand, the sol-gel transition temperature of MC/HTAB solution decreases linearly with the concentration of NaCl in solution. The experimental results suggest that, for MC/NaCl solution in the presence of HTAB, the salt-induced spherical micelles of HTAB should have formed in bulk solution. For MC solution in the absence of NaCl, no spherical micelles have been formed in bulk solution, though the concentration of HTAB in our experiment is almost one order of magnitude higher than the critical micelle concentration of HTAB in polymer-free solution. In fact, due to adsorption of HTAB on MC chains, the realconcentration of HTAB in bulk solution, is much less than the apparent concentration of HTAB dissolved in MC solution.