Basic Surfactant Building Blocks

One way to approach the concept of building a useful surfactant molecule is to look at the process much as a child building a boat with Leggo building blocks. The first 

---

Gradual heating of this mixture up to ca. 200°C results in dissolution of the gel and forms clusters of SiOyAlO - tmits which are the basic building blocks for the zeolite. In the presence of the amine or surfactant, these building blocks polymerize to form the zeolite which crystallizes slowly from the reaction mixture. At this point, the zeolite still contains the occluded organic template. The resultant template can easily be removed by heating to 200-400°C. This process is also called as calcination. 

Fig. 3.1 Building blocks of thermotropic and lyotropic liquid crystalline phases. The upper part of the figure shows two examples of typical thermotropic mesogens. Calamitic mesogens, such as terephthal-bis-(p-butylaniline) (TBBA) [2], can be represented by prolate ellipsoids or rigid rods, while discotic mesogens, such as benzene-hexa-n-octanoate (BH8) [4], are usually described by oblate ellipsoids or discs. The lower part of the figure shows the typical surfactant molecule sodium dodecyl sulfate (SDS), which forms lyotropic phases with water [5], Such a surfactant molecule is basically composed of a polar head group and a flexible hydrophobic tail. These amphiphilic molecules aggregate into different types of micelles, which are the actual mesogens of lyotropic liquid crystals. The shape of the micelles depends mainly on the solvent concentration...

Throughout this book, we have examined some basic classifications of soft materials, from liquid crystals and surfactants to colloids and polymers. At this point, you should be familiar with the characteristics of these materials. As you have seen, there is considerable crossover between these material classifications, but common themes unite the field. In this chapter, we look at the different soft materials that can be found in the living cell. Aside from our bones and teeth, the body is primarily composed of soft tissues, so we can naturally classify the building blocks of these tissues as soft materials, from the macroscopic level of fat and muscles, down to the microscopic structures inside individual cells. 

---