On the Kinetics of the Formation of Ionic Micelles. I. Analysis of the Amplitudes

The kinetics of the formation of ionic micelles has been investigated using a p‐jump apparatus. The resulting relaxation phenomenon was found to be composed of three exponentially decaying processes. The first one of these may be attributed to the change of electrolytic properties of the solution due to the pressure jump. The other two are attributed respectively to the change of the mean aggregation number and to the change of the total number of micelles. In this first paper, the amplitudes of the latter two processes are analysed and their dependence on concentration derived. The theoretical results are found to be consistent with experimental observation: At concentrations close to the cmc, the system reacts to increasing pressure preferably by decreasing the number of micelles, while at higher concentrations it reacts preferably by decreasing the mean aggregation number. In a second paper, the analysis of the time constants of these two relaxation processes will be presented.