Estimation of the Interfacial Tension Between the Lamellar and the Sponge Phases of a Lyotropic System

In lyotropic systems, the sponge and the lamellar phases possess the same local structure: a membrane made of a bilayer of surfactants. In the quasiternary lyotropic system CPCl/brine/hexanol, the bilayer is continuous through the interface between the lamellar and the sponge phases. A model based on this phenomenon has predicted a very low value of the interfacial free energy. The study of hydrodynamic relaxation time of distorted spherical lamellar droplets gives an estimation of the interfacial tension value. Results confirm the validity of the model and the dependence on membrane volume fraction is explained by a simple scaling law.