Influence of fatty acid structure on liquid crystal formation in systems with anionic surfactant, diethyleneglycol ethylether and water

Abstract

The influence of the fatty acid structure on the formation of transparent gels with lamellar liquid crystal structure, for systems composed of an anionic surfactant, fatty acid, diethyleneglycol ethyl ether and water, was investigated. The influence of the alkyl chain length, for both saturated and unsaturated fatty acids, was considered. Moreover, for a given alkyl chain length, the influence of polyunsaturation was also considered. The results obtained indicate that with saturated fatty acids, it is not possible to form lamellar liquid crystals with the appearance of transparent gels, and that in the case of unsaturated acids, the influence of the alkyl chain length is more important than the degree of unsaturation.