ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on simple cases, where the polymers are linear and flexible, and the surfactant aggregates finite and micellar. It discusses mixtures of intrinsically watersoluble polymers with pure surfactant micelles. The chapter describes the phase behavior of isotropic aqueous mixtures of surfactants with hydrophilic polymers. The dominating contribution to the osmotic pressure of a semi-dilute solution of a flexible polymer originates from the internal degrees of freedom of the polymer: the number of ways to fold each chain becomes severely restricted as the concentration increases the overlap concentration. Highly charged polymers, aggregates or particles differ strongly from the corresponding nonionic species. There is a strong enrichment of counterions close to the polyion and this uneven counterion distribution lowers the entropy markedly. Hydrophobically associating water-soluble polymers are essentially hydrophilic polymer molecules, modified by a small number of very hydrophobic moieties attached as side-groups or end-groups.
