Abstract: The effects of isopropyl alcohol, tert-butyl alcohol, isopentyl alcohol, benzaldehyde on the first order rate constant k₁ of the basic hydrolysis reaction of 2,4-dinitrochlorobenzene in the solution of cetyltrimethylammonium bromide(CTAB) are studied. The results show that k₁ decreases with increasing the concentration of small organic additive. It was found that the smaller the alcohol solubility in water and the larger the binding constant with the micelles, the faster the reaction rate decreases. The pseudophase ion-exchange model is applied to quantitatively treat the experimental data. The above results are consistent with that obtained from dynamic light scattering, and are interpreted in terms of the change in micellar structure.

Key words: Micellar catalysis, Cationic surfactant, Pseudophase ion exchange model