Effect of Minor Components on the Surface Tension of Micellar Dodecyl Sulfate Solutions

A theory is developed to predict the effect of a minor component on the surface tension variation of micellar surfactant solutions. The approach is similar as this of Lucassen-Reynders and van den Tempel. The theory was tested for sodium dodecylsulfate solutions containing higher alcohols (hexadecanol, octanol, decanol, dodecanol and tetradecanol). Fair agreement between theory and experiments was achieved except for octanol and hexanol.