Formation of wormlike micelles in anionic surfactant AES aqueous solutions

The growth and structure of anionic micelles of sodium dodecyl trioxyethylene sulfate (AES) in the presence of multivalent counterion Al3+ were investigated by means of dynamic rheological methods. It has been obtained by the measurements of shear viscosity, complex viscosity and dynamic moduli, as well as the application of Cox-Merz rule and Cole-Cole plot that wormlike micelle and network structure could be formed in AES/AlCl3 aqueous solutions. The structure was of a character of nonlinear viscoelastic fluid and departure from the simple Maxwell model. The technique of freeze-fracture transmission electron microscopy (FF-TEM) was also used to confirm the formation of this interesting structure.