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Micellar phases can be used as templates for the preparation of mesoporous silica materials. Fluorinated and hydrogenated surfactants can provide a large variety of well-defined micellar structures: spherical and cylindrical micelles as well as more complex structures such as lamellar or sponge phases can be formed in various thermodynamic conditions. However, the preparation of ordered mesoporous materials from these organized media is not always successful for a reason not known at the moment. It thus seems of the highest importance to properly characterize the micellar solution prior to the addition of the silica precursor during the material synthesis. In this paper, we describe some rheophysical properties of the micellar phase L(1) prepared with a fluorinated surfactant, the formula of which is C(7)F(15)C(2)H(4)(OC(2)H(4))(8)OH, labeled as R(F)(7)(EO)(8). This surfactant forms micelles in water, and the direct micellar phases have been characterized in a wide range of temperatures and surfactant concentrations. The rheological properties of the L(1) phase have also been studied as a function of temperature and concentration. Under steady and dynamic flow conditions, the solutions behave like Newtonian or shear thinning fluids depending on the temperature and surfactant concentration. A crossover between G' and G" is observed in the solution at the concentration of 20 wt % and at the temperature of 10 °C, suggesting the presence of long entangled micelles in solution at this temperature. When subjected to the action of a shearing device, the 20 wt % solution becomes optically anisotropic and shows flow birefringence, but the average orientation of the micelles quantified by the extinction angle χ shows an unexpected behavior when the shear rate is gradually increased.

The stability of the shear banded flow of a Maxwellian fluid is studied from an experimental point of view using rheology and flow visualization with polarized light. We show that the one-layer homogeneous flow cannot sustain shear rates corresponding to the end of the stress plateau. The high shear rate branch is not found and the shear stress oscillates at the end of the plateau. An azimuthal instability appears: the shear induced band becomes unstable and the interface between the two bands undulates in time and space with a period τ, a wavelength λ and a wave vector k parallel to the direction of the tangential velocity.

9 pages; International audience; We present and discuss the results of pointwise velocity measurements performed on a viscoelastic micellar solution made of cetyltrimethylammonium bromide and sodium salicylate in water, respectively, at the concentrations of 50 and 100 mmol. The sample is contained in a Couette device and subjected to flow in the strain controlled mode. This particular solution shows shear banding and, in a narrow range of shear rates at the right end of the stress plateau, apparent shear thickening occurs. Time-dependent recordings of the shear stress in this range reveal that the flow has become unstable and that large sustained oscillations of the shear stress and of the first normal stresses difference emerge and grow in the flow. Local pointwise velocity measurements clearly reveal a velocity profile typical of shear banding when the imposed shear rate belongs to the plateau, but also important wall slip in the entire range of velocity gradients investigated. In the oscillations regime, the velocity is recorded as a function of time at a fixed point close to the rotor of the Couette device. The time-dependent velocity profile reveals random fluctuations but, from time to time, sharp decreases much larger than the standard deviation are observed. An attempt is made to correlate these strong variations with the stress oscillations and a correlation coefficient r is computed. However, the small value found for the coefficient r does not allow us to draw a final conclusion as concerns the correlation between stress oscillations and velocity fast decreases.

Dynamic light scattering experiments on lyotropic lamellar phases of brine and surfactant subjected to a flow field have been realized. The obtained results reveal that the relaxation times measured depend strongly on the velocity of the flow. This dependence is indicative of an increase of the effective elasticity modulus K and a decrease of the effective compressibility modulus (-)B of the lamellar phase with the flow velocity. This leads to the conclusion that the shear can induce a suppression of the undulation fluctuations of the bilayers of the lamellar phase. Our results show also that the rigidity of the membranes decreases as the salt concentration of the sample increases.

The flow-structure relation of lamellar phases is studied using rheometry and cross-polarized microscopy under flow. The equilibrium phases show different defects. Low salinities lead to very viscous, "onion" phases, whereas at high salinity, a low viscosity plane lamellar phase is found. Under shear, the latter shows a sudden transition to a viscoelastic gel, with a texture and viscosity very similar to that of the onions. Gelation occurs after a certain delay time, increasing rapidly with salinity, by the nucleation of onions. This allows one to relate the delay time to the defect energy.