Agzenai Ben Salem, YahyaRenamayor, Carmen S.Esteban Pacios, María Isabel2024-05-212024-05-212012-03-08https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14468/19321The addition of a polyelectrolyte to lamellar media formed by an oppositely charged surfactant often leads to the coexistence of several phases without macroscopic phase separation, which makes their characterization difficult. Here, the effect of the polydiallyldimethylammonium chloride (PD) on the lamellar liquid crystal formed by the anionic surfactant Aerosol OT (AOT) and water is investigated. SAXS results are discussed regarding the changes in the lamellar spacing as a function on the PD or AOT concentrations. In most of the samples two lamellar phases, without macroscopic phase separation, are detected. One of them is a typical swollen phase, while the other is a collapsed phase, which corresponds to the polymer-surfactant complex. At concentrations of polymer up to 3 %wt the two lamellar phases coexist, however, at a critical concentration higher than 3 %wt, the swollen phase becomes isotropic, and a macroscopic phase separation takes place. A simple model is proposed to calculate the composition of the phases when macroscopic phase separation does not occur. The results thus calculated show that generally the polymer-surfactant complexes are non-stoichiometric containing a lesser amount of polymer than ideally expected.enAtribución-NoComercial-SinDerivadas 4.0 Internacionalinfo:eu-repo/semantics/openAccessartículoSAXSAOTpolydiallyldimethylammonium chloridepolymer-surfactant complex