Surfactant interactions in oil continuous microemulsions

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Abstract
We have used light scattering to determine the interaction potential between the surfactant coated water droplets in an oil continuous microemulsion system. The forward extrapolated zero angle scattering intensities at various water volume fractions were analyzed in terms of the Carnahan–Starling hard‐sphere model modified for two‐body attractive interactions. It was found that interparticle attractive interaction due to the overlapping of the surfactant tails could explain the observed phase behavior with respect to changes in the carbon chain length of the oil phase, as well as the existence of the lower critical point. It is further found that the optically determined potential is consistent with the microscopic results obtained with small angle neutron scattering experiments.