Micellization and related behavior of binary and ternary surfactant mixtures in aqueous medium: cetyl pyridinium chloride (CPC), cetyl trimethyl ammonium bromide (CTAB), and polyoxyethylene (10) cetyl ether (Brij-56) derived system.

Mixed micelles formed with cetyl pyridinium chloride (CPC), cetyl trimethylammonium bromide (CTAB), and polyoxyethylene (10) cetyl ether (Brij-56) mixed in different combinations in aqueous medium have been studied in detail by tensiometric, conductometric, calorimetric, spectrophotometric, and fluorimetric techniques. Different physicochemical properties such as critical micellar concentration (cmc), micellar dissociation, energetic parameters (free energy, enthalpy, and entropy) of micellization, interfacial adsorption, and micellar aggregation number have been determined. The results have been analyzed in terms of the equations of Clint, Motomura, Rosen, Rubingh, Blankschtein et al., and Rubingh and Holland for justification of the experimental cmc, determination of micellar composition parameters, quantification of interaction among the mixed micelle components, and estimation of their activity coefficients.