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Colloidal fibers as structurant for worm-like micellar solutions

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Abstract

We investigate the rheological properties of a simplified version of a liquid detergent composed of an aqueous solution of the linear alkylbenzene sulphonate (LAS) surfactant, in which a small amount of fibers made of hydrogenated castor oil (HCO) is dispersed. At the concentration typically used in detergents, LAS is in a worm-like micellar phase exhibiting a Maxwellian behavior. The presence of HCO fibers provides elastic properties, such that the system behaves as a simple Zener body, mechanically characterized by a parallel connection of a spring and a Maxwell element. Despite this apparent independence of the contributions of the fibers and the surfactant medium to the mechanical characteristics of the system, we find that the low frequency modulus increases with increasing LAS concentration. This indicates that LAS induces attractive interactions among the HCO fibers, resulting in the formation of a stress-bearing structure that withstands shear at HCO concentrations, where the HCO fibers in the absence of attractive interactions would not sufficiently overlap to provide stress-bearing properties to the system.

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Acknowledgements

We thank P&G for the materials and for financial support to G.Z. and S.M..

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Author notes

  1. Giuliano Zanchetta and Shadi Mirzaagha contributed equally to this work.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Physics, University of Fribourg, Fribourg, Switzerland

    Giuliano Zanchetta & Veronique Trappe

  2. Department of Medical Biotechnology and Translational Medicine, University of Milano, Milan, Italy

    Giuliano Zanchetta

  3. Department of Chemical, Materials and Industrial Production Engineering, Università degli Studi di Napoli Federico II, Naples, Italy

    Shadi Mirzaagha, Nino Grizzuti & Rossana Pasquino

  4. Bruxelles Innovation Center, Procter & Gamble Co., Strombeek Bever, Belgium

    Vincenzo Guida & Fabio Zonfrilli

  5. Microstructured Fluids Group, Procter & Gamble Co., West Chester, OH, USA

    Marco Caggioni

Authors
  1. Giuliano Zanchetta
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  2. Shadi Mirzaagha
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  3. Vincenzo Guida
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  4. Fabio Zonfrilli
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  5. Marco Caggioni
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  6. Nino Grizzuti
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  7. Rossana Pasquino
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  8. Veronique Trappe
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Rossana Pasquino.

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Zanchetta, G., Mirzaagha, S., Guida, V. et al. Colloidal fibers as structurant for worm-like micellar solutions. Colloid Polym Sci 296, 1379–1385 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00396-018-4357-0

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00396-018-4357-0

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