Here, we present experimental surface tension isotherms of mixed solutions of a zwitterionic surfactant a-decylbetaine (DB) and an anionic surfactant sodium dodecyl sulfate (SDS) in different molar ratios. These mixed solutions show a composition dependency with respect to both surface tension effectiveness and critical micelle concentration. The pseudo-regular solution theory has been used to evaluate the interaction parameters in the micelle, b m and at the surface, b s . The results revealed that the mixed solutions of DB/SDS behave synergistically in both surface tension reduction effectiveness and mixed micelle formation at all mole fractions investigated. The values of adsorption area per surfactant molecule at air/ solution interface were estimated, which provides some useful information on evaluating the interaction between DB and SDS in mixed adsorbed monolayers. The solubilization behaviors of toluene in DB/SDS mixed solutions were also investigated to help in understanding the structure of mixed micelles of DB and SDS.

A nucleophilic substitution reaction was developed to synthesize the zwitterionic surfactant using a renewable natural fatty acid rather than a petroleum derivative as the raw material. The kinetics and mechanism of the nucleophilic substitution reaction of trimethylamine a-chlorododecyl carboxylate with trimethylamine were investigated in protic and dipolar aprotic solvents including water, ethanol and N, N-dimethyl formamide. The rate equations were derived using initial rates and the activation parameters in different solvents were determined empirically and compared with each other to obtain important information about the reaction mechanism. The overall second-order reaction number and the negative activation entropy supported a bimolecular nucleophilic substitution (S N 2) mechanism, combined with the pseudo-first-order kinetics for each reactant. The experimental results also showed that the reaction reactivity diminishes with the decrease in polarity of protic solvents. The typical dipolar aprotic solvent dimethyl formamide distinctively promoted the reaction in. This fact was successfully explained by the solvation rule for S N 2 reactions.