Effect of Different Additives on Cloud Point of Non Ionic Surfactant

Abstract

Determination of cloud point of non-ionic surfactants have wide applications as it is the temperature where the mixture starts to phase separate and the two phases appear, thus becoming cloudy. Non-ionic surfactants find suitable applications for recovery of membrane components under mild non-denaturing condition. Knowing the cloud point helps us to determine the storage stability since storing formulations at temperatures significantly higher than the cloud point may result in phase separation and instability. Generally, non-ionic surfactants show optimal effectiveness when used near or below their cloud point.
In this present work, effects of different additives on cloud point of non-ionic surfactants have been studied. Triton X-100 (TX-100) has been used as the non-ionic surfactant and observations have been done subsequently for different concentration of TX-100 by taking various additives like NaCl, Na2SO4, CaCl2 and corresponding temperature were noted down. Other than non-ionic surfactants, experiments were conducted for both cationic as well as anionic surfactants. Based upon the result, graphs were plotted which comply well with the theoretical study.