STUDY OF THE INTERACTION BETWEEN CATIONIC SURFACTANTS AND POLYMERS

The aggregation of surfactants in aqueous solution is governed by equilibrium of hydrophilic, hydrophobic or ionic interactions but similarly the solubility of some polymer in water is realized by equilibrium between their hydrophilic and hydrophobic parts. The studies showed the fact that the aqueous solutions witch contain as surfactant as polymers present the complex models of interaction and their interaction diversities equalize apparent itself number of systems. The surfactantpolymer systems have a special importance, with a variety of applications witch include: pharmaceutical preparations, foods, and cosmetics, fluids for the extraction of oil, detergents, and the interest concerning the research of these systems continuously increases. Also, the understanding of these systems is very important for many biological processes and systems witch included bio-membranes, vesicles and also, in the binding of small molecules into bio-polymers. The interaction between polymers and cationic surfactants in aqueous solutions was studied using different techniques as: superficial tension, electric conductivity, viscosity, the precipitation and solubility, adsorption, calorimetry, electroscopy, fluorescence, magnetic resonance, circular dichroism, etc. Goddard has centralized many results obtained by these techniques. The studies shown the fact that the interactions between ionic surfactants and poly-ions with contrary signs are strong, but the interactions between ionic surfactants and neutral polymers are relatively weak. Non-ionic surfactants don't react strong with non-ionic polymers witch are soluble in water or with poly-electrolytes, but they can play an important role in the phenomena of binding in systems which contain mixtures of polymers and surfactants.