Wormlike Micelles: Advances in Systems, Characterisation and Applications

Wormlike micelles are elongated flexible self-assembled structures created from the aggregation of amphiphiles and their resulting dynamic networks have gained attention for a number of uses, particularly in the oil industry.

Written by experts, Wormlike Micelles describes the latest developments in the field providing an authoritative guide on the subject. The book starts with an introductory chapter giving an overview of the area and then looks at the three key topics of new wormlike micelle systems, characterization and applications. New systems covered in the first part include reverse wormlike micelles and stimuli-responsive wormlike micelles. The second part explores cutting-edge techniques that have led to advances in the understanding of their structure and dynamics, including direct imaging techniques and the combination of rheology with small-angle neutron scattering techniques. Finally, the book reviews their use in oil and gas well treatments as well as surfactant drag reducing solutions.

Aimed at postgraduate students and researchers, this text is essential reading for anyone interested in soft matter systems.

Céile A. Dreiss is a Senior Lecturer in the Institute of Pharmaceutical Science, King’s College London, UK. Her research focuses on understanding and exploiting self-assembly in soft matter, spanning colloidal, polymeric and biological systems, by establishing relationships between properties on the macro-scale (bulk behaviour or functionality) and the organization at the nanoscale. She uses neutron and X-ray scattering techniques extensively as well as rheology. Cecile graduated in Chemistry and Chemical Engineering (ENSIC, France). She received her PhD from Imperial College London (Chemical Engineering) in 2003, after which she took up a 2-year postdoc position at the University of Bristol. She then moved back to London and was appointed as a Lecturer in September 2005. Yujun Feng is a Professor at the Polymer Research Institute and State Key Laboratory of Polymer Materials Engineering, Sichuan University. After earning his PhD in applied chemistry from Southwest Petroleum University, China, in 1999, he moved to France to undertake his post-doctoral research at the Laboratoire de Physico-Chimie des Polymeres, CNRS/Universite de Pau, and at the Institut Français du Petrole (IFP), respectively. In 2004, he joined in the Chengdu Institute of Organic Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences, and has been serving as a team leader since then. In September 2012, he relocated to Sichuan University where he is focusing stimuli-responsive surfactants and polymers.