Action in Solution
Like many surfactants, ammonium lauryl sulfate makes a good base for cleaners because of the way it disrupts hydrogen bonding in water. (It is hydrogen bonding that is the primary contributor to the high surface tension of water.) In aqueous (water-based) solutions, the lauryl sulfate anions and the ammonium cations dissociate from each other. Above the critical micelle concentration, the anions then align themselves into a micelle, in which they form a sphere with the polar, hydrophilic heads of the sulfate portion on the outside (surface) of the sphere and the nonpolar, hydrophobic tails pointing inwards towards the center. The water molecules around the micelle in turn arrange themselves around the polar heads, which disrupts their ability to hydrogen bond with other nearby water molecules. The overall effect of these micelles is a reduction in surface tension of the solution, which affords a greater ability to penetrate or "wet out" various surfaces, including porous structures like cloth, fibers, and hair. Accordingly, this allows the solution to more readily dissolve soils, greases, etc. in and on such substrates.
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