Microemulsions With High Water Solubilizing Capacity At High Hydrocarbon Levels And Very Low Surfactant Concentrations

Phase diagrams have been determined showing the extent of the inverse micellar or microemulsion region for systems consisting of water-surfactant-cosurfactant or water-surfactant-hydrocarbon cosurfactant mixture with three surfactants and four cosurfactants. The surfactants are sodium dodecyl sulfate, sodium laurate, and tetradecyltrimethylammonium bromide while the cosurfactants are pentanol, hexanol, pentylamine, and hexylamine. Hexylamine is found to be a very effective cosurfactant giving rise to very good water solubilizing capacity at extremely low surfactant concentrations and very low cosurfactant levels at rather high initial hydrocarbon levels. © 1986