Micellar crystals growth

Physical chemists established a process called self-organization in which water-insoluble amphiphiles firstly form a molecular brush on the water surface and then assemble to spherical droplets or bladders in bulk water if a threshold concentration (cmc, critical micellar concentration) is surpassed. It was also shown that the self-organization of molecular mono- and bilayers is commonly not followed by crystal growth which would normally be favoured as it diminishes surface energies. Repulsive hydration and undulation effects were held responsible for preventing the growth of the delicate bilayer structures to 3D crystals. 

Addition of micelle-forming surfactants and sodium dodecyl sulfate (SDS), in particular, dramatically increased the stabilities of N-alkalygluconamide aggregates (Fig. 55) [377]. It was considered that the rate of dissolution of the incipient head-to-tail sheets of crystallization nuclei by the micellar aggregates exceeded the growth rate of the crystals. This rationalization is supported by the... 

Fig. 26 Schematic picture of the growth front of a polymer crystal according to the folded-chain fringed-micellar grain model of the melt...

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