Surfactant Concentration Effects on Micellar Properties

A hydrophobic theory is combined with a Debye-Hückel approximation to calculate surfactant micellization properties such as the critical micelle concentration (cmc) and concentration effects. The predictive power of the theory is validated by comparison with experimental data of various ionic surfactant types in presence of salt. The theory is also used to describe micellar properties of surfactant models developed for molecular simulations for which cmc computations become infeasible. The theory allows such computations and helps to evaluate the quality of models used in simulations.