ABSTRACT
This chapter describes ternary mixtures of oil, water, and surfactant within the Landau–Ginzburg (LG) approach. It presents various computational methods for studying the structure and stability regions of various phases within the basic and the extended LG models of the ternary surfactant mixtures. The chapter utilizes: minimization of the LG functionals in the case of structures periodic in space; Monte Carlo simulations; bifurcation analysis; and perturbation expansion for many-body correlation functions. To start minimization one needs an initial configuration which should contain the most important features of the investigated structures. The chapter investigates many bicontinuous phases of different symmetries, genera and dimensions of the unit cell. When comparable amounts of oil and water are mixed with surfactant a bicontinuous, isotropic phase is formed. This bicontinuous phase, called a microemulsion, can coexist with oil- and water-rich phases.
