Micelles aggregates structure

The structure of these globular aggregates is characterized by a micellar core formed by the hydrophilic heads of the surfactant molecules and a surrounding hydrophobic layer constituted by their opportunely arranged alkyl chains whereas their dynamics are characterized by conformational motions of heads and alkyl chains, frequent exchange of surfactant monomers between bulk solvent and micelle, and structural collapse of the aggregate leading to its dissolution, and vice versa [2-7]. 

In the bilayer or upon interaction with detergent micelles, a structural reorganization of pardaxin aggregates takes place, in which the polar side chains interact with themselves and the hydrophobic residues are externally oriented in the pardaxin aggregate, therefore allowing interactions with the lipid backbone hydrocarbons. 

McKenna et al. (1977) found that a bis steroid [10] can bind perylene without micellization. Interestingly, the corresponding monosteroid did not bind perylene in the absence of micellization. The bis-steroid may assume a conformation which is related to the aggregate structure of bile salts. An... 

A polymer prepared in the presence of a secondary force often possesses a structure different from that obtained in solution. Template polymerization is a typical example. Micelles and polymer micelles are formed under conditions of thermodynamic equilibrium, so that the structure of these aggregates are always quite fluid. If the aggregate structure is immobilized by polymerization, they will provide better models of enzymes. 

As mentioned earlier, surfactants aggregate to form micelles, which may vary in size (i.e., number of monomers per micelle) from a few to over a thousand monomers. However, surfactants can form, besides simple micellar aggregates (i.e., spherical or ellipsoidal), many other structures also when mixed with other substances. The curved micelle aggregates are known to change to planar interfaces when additives, the so-called cosurfactants, are added. A reported recipe consists of... 

In the remainder of this article, discussion of surfactant dissolution mechanisms and rates proceeds from the simplest case of pure nonionic surfactants to nonionic surfactant mixtures, mixtures of nonionics with anionics, and finally to development of myehnic figures during dissolution, with emphasis on studies in one anionic surfactant/water system. Not considered here are studies of rates of transformation between individual phases or aggregate structures in surfactant systems, e.g., between micelles and vesicles. Reviews of these phenomena, which include some of the information summarized below, have been given elsewhere [7,15,29]. 

Some surfactants aggregate at the solid-liquid interface to form micelle-like structures, which are popularly known as hemimicelles or in general solloids (surface colloids) [23-26]. There is evidence in favor of the formation of these two-dimensional surfactant aggregates of ionic surfactants at the alumina-water surface and that of nonionic surfactants at the silica-water interface [23-26]. 

The aggregation numbers Nagg is determined as 27 for C1-(EO)53-C4-VB and 38 for Cr(EO)53-C7-VB micelles by analysis of fluorescence curves. A micelle formation mechanism is proposed for nonionic polymeric surfactants with weakly hydrophobic groups. At low concentrations of PEO macromonomers, large loosely aggregated structures involving the PEO chains are formed. At higher concentrations normal micelles form. These are star-shaped, with a hydrophobic core surrounded by a corona of PEO chains. 

Surfactants not only aggregate to spherical micelles but also form cylinders, bilayers, inverted micelles, etc. [524], The type of aggregate structure formed depends on different factors. An important factor is the so-called surfactant parameter, also referred to as the packing ratio [533] ... 

Subtraction of the spectrum of liquid water, even of moderate band intensity, can also be complicated by solute-water interactions which cause a shift in the H-O-H bending bands, making a complete nulling of the band in the difference spectrum impossible (23). As discussed further below, in bulk phase samples such as microemulsions or inverse micelles of moderate water content, significant information about aggregate structure is obtained from shifts in the water bands. 

Although a number of infrared bands can be used to establish that a micellar shape change has occurred, it is difficult to determine the actual shape unambiguously from the spectroscopic data alone. We therefore make use of micelle aggregation numbers and solution rheological properties, which depend on micelle size and shape, for correlation with the structural information (packing) provided by the FTIR spectra. 

Variation of v. The last mixed micelle case studied were mixtures in which the volume of the hydrophobic tails was varied by mixing monoalkyl and dialkyl cationic surfactants (DTAB/DDAB). The aggregate structures found as a function of composition are detailed in Table IV. TTiey range from lamellar packed liquid... 

Many, if not most additives are present in oils not as individual molecules in solution, but as single or multi-component aggregates (inverse micelles), ordered structures or chemical complexes. 

Considerations of the packing parameter concept of Israelachvili et al. [1] suggest that double-chain surfactants, which form the basis of measurements described in this article, cannot readily form spherical micelles. With double-chain surfactants, a more likely aggregate structure is the formation of bilayer vesicles, which can be also thought of as a dispersed lamellar phase (La) as such the vesicular dispersed form is likely to be preferentially formed at low concentrations ( 1 mmol dm-3) of surfactant. Furthermore, it is necessary to consider the possibility, unlike in the case of micelles, that such vesicles, formed by self-assembly of surfactant monomers, will not be thermodynamically stable. The instability is then likely to be in the direction of growth to a thermodynamically-stable lamellar phase from the vesicles. This process will be driven, at least initially, by fusion of two vesicles. 

Compared to phospholipid vesicles, it has been observed that peptides tend to be structured in micelles, and that SDS in particular seems to induce a high degree of a-helical secondary structure. In other cases, it has been shown that micelle aggregates induce curved helical structures in peptides, which are not seen in more realistic bilayered membrane models (17,18). 

---