Molecular interaction for quasi-binary mixture of N-acyl amino sulfonate amphoteric surfactant from castor oil and stearyltrimethyl ammonium bromide

[Display omitted] •Quasi-binary mixture of amphoteric surfactant based on castor oil and cationic surfactant.•Micellization behavior of quasi-binary surfactant mixture.•Mechanism on the interaction between surfactants. The micellization behavior and the molecular interaction of quasi-binary mixture constituted by an amphoteric sodium N-acyl amino sulfonate based on castor oil (AAS-CO) with a cationic stearyltrimethyl ammonium bromide (STAB) in aqueous solution at 298.15 K were investigated using both the tensiometry and the conductometry and the two techniques were adopted to determine the mixed critical micelle concentration (cmc). Based on the regular solution theory and in the framework of the pseudophase separation model, Rubingh’s model and Clint’s model were adopted to estimate the mole fractions and the activity coefficients in mixed micelle, the interaction parameters between quasi-one AAS-CO and STAB. Also, thermodynamic parameters were obtained by thermodynamic models. Synergistic interaction between surfactants and non-ideal mixing were observed in the entire range of composition in this investigation. The addition of quasi-one AAS-CO into aqueous solution can induce the alteration of interaction behavior between surfactants, which can be explained rationally by the shielding effect, the electrostatic repulsion and the steric hindrance. Thermodynamic parameters imply that it appears an enthalpically spontaneous behavior in the process of micellization and there exists a largest negative deviation of free energy change of micellization from the ideal case at the optimum composition in which a maximum synergism happens. These findings will help with understanding the molecular interaction between quasi-one component and other one in surfactant mixtures.