Critical micelle concentration interactions

Anionic Surfactants. PVP also interacts with anionic detergents, another class of large anions (108). This interaction has generated considerable interest because addition of PVP results in the formation of micelles at lower concentration than the critical micelle concentration (CMC) of the free surfactant the mechanism is described as a "necklace" of hemimicelles along the polymer chain, the hemimicelles being surrounded to some extent with PVP (109). The effective lowering of the CMC increases the surfactant s apparent activity at interfaces. PVP will increase foaming of anionic surfactants for this reason. 

The interaction of such compounds with the bilayer can result in alteration in vesicle properties such as permeability and stability of the bilayer structure. Amphiphatic compounds such as detergents (e.g., Triton and lysophosphoiipids) can intercalate in the bilayer below their critical micelle concentration (CMC) (Kitagawa et al.,... 

The formation of mixed micelles in surfactant solutions which contain two or more surfactant components can be significantly affected by the structures of the surfactants involved. The observed critical micelle concentration (cmc) is often significantly lower than would be expected based on the erne s of the pure surfactants. This clearly demonstrates that interactions between different surfactant components in the mixed micelles are taking place. 

FORMATION. Aqueous solutions of highly surface-active substances spontaneously tend to reduce interfacial energy of solute-solvent interactions by forming micelles. The critical micelle concentration (or, c.m.c.) is the threshold surfactant concentration, above which micelle formation (also known as micellization) is highly favorable. For sodium dodecyl sulfate, the c.m.c. is 5.6 mM at 0.01 M NaCl or about 3.1 mM at 0.03 M NaCl. The lower c.m.c. observed at higher salt concentration results from a reduction in repulsive forces among the ionic head groups on the surface of micelles made up of ionic surfactants. As would be expected for any entropy-driven process, micelle formation is less favorable as the temperature is lowered. 

In a recent paper, the interaction of various simple flavonoids with an anionic surfactant, sodium dodecyl sulfate (SDS) in aqueous solution, has been studied through absorption spectroscopy as a function of the concentration of the surfactant above and below the critical micelle concentration.The approximate number of additive molecules (flavonoids) incorporated per micelle was estimated at a particular concentration of SDS. Incorporation of flavonoids in micelles shifted the UV absorption bands toward higher wavelengths, and the bathochromic shifts also depended upon the nature of the surfactant head group. 

Critical Micelle Concentration. In order to demonstrate the analogy between our treatment of mixed adsorption and earlier treatments of mixed micellization, we will briefly review the thermodynamics of mixed micelles. The thermodynamics of formation of ideal mixed micelles by two surfactants has been treated by Lange and Beck (9 ) and Cling (10). Rubingh ( ) extended the treatment to account for interactions between the surfactants, essentially by writing the cmc in the mixed surfactant solution as. 

Critical micelle concentration in aqueous solutions was determined by fluorescence using pyrene as a probe. The driving force for micelle formation is the strong hydro-phobic interactions between [(R)-3-hydroxybutyrate] block. It was previously determined by this group that terpolymers with longer PHB blocks have much lower critical micelle concentrations because of PHB block aggregation in aqueous solution. Testing results are provided in Table 2. 

The enthalpy change associated with formation of a thermodynamically ideal solution is equal to zero. Therefore any heat change measured in a mixing calorimetry experiment is a direct indicator of the interactions in the system (Prigogine and Defay, 1954). For a simple biopolymer solution, calorimetric measurements can be conveniently made using titra-tion/flow calorimeter equipment. For example, from isothermal titration calorimetry of solutions of bovine P-casein, Portnaya et al. (2006) have determined the association behaviour, the critical micelle concentration (CMC), and the enthalpy of (de)micellization. 

With alkali halide-TBA-W or alkali halide-PD-W systems, the parameters Bne are negative for volumes and heat capacities (see Figures 1-5 and 10). This sign seems to be the one usually observed for the interaction of a hydrophobic with a hydrophilic solute (6). At intermediate cosolvent concentration, AYe°(W — W + TBA) and AYe°(W — W + PD) deviate in the direction we would expect for hydrophobic association the volume increases sharply, and the heat capacity decreases further. Inorganic electrolytes lower the critical micelle concentration of surfactants by salting out the monomers, thus favoring micellization (25) in a similar way, in the co-sphere of a hydrophilic ion, the hydrophobic bonding between the cosolvent molecules may be enhanced. 

The energetically unfavorable interactions of the hydrophobic tails with the water molecules are then minimized by the surfactants forming aggregates with other surfactant molecules. In those aggregates, the hydrophilic headgroups remain solvated by water molecules while the hydrocarbon moieties are shielded from water and create a hydrophobic microenvironment. Examples of these spontaneously formed aggregates are micelles and lamellae. The intersection of the extrapolations of the linear parts of the surface tension curve (Figure 17.2) is the critical micelle concentration (CMC). 

---