Micelles definition

Extensive discussions have focused on the conformation of the alkyl chains in the interior ". It has been has demonstrated that the alkyl chains of micellised surfactant are not fully extended. Starting from the headgroup, the first two or three carbon-carbon bonds are usually trans, whereas gauche conformations are likely to be encountered near the centre of tlie chain ". As a result, the methyl termini of the surfactant molecules can be located near the surface of the micelle, and have even been suggested to be able to protrude into the aqueous phase "". They are definitely not all gathered in the centre of tire micelle as is often suggested in pictorial representations. NMR studies have indicated that the hydrocarbon chains in a micelle are highly mobile, comparable to the mobility of a liquid alkane ... 

Solubilisation is usually treated in terms of the pseudophase model, in which the bulk aqueous phase is regarded as one phase and tire micellar pseudophase as another. This allows the affinity of the solubilisate for the micelle to be quantified by a partition coefficient P. Different definitions of P can be found in the literature, differing in their description of the micellar phase. Frequently P is... 

The limitation of using such a model is the assumption that the diffusional boundary layer, as defined by the effective diffusivity, is the same for both the solute and the micelle [45], This is a good approximation when the diffusivities of all species are similar. However, if the micelle is much larger than the free solute, then the difference between the diffusional boundary layer of the two species, as defined by Eq. (24), is significant since 8 is directly proportional to the diffusion coefficient. If known, the thickness of the diffusional boundary layer for each species can be included directly in the definition of the effective diffusivity. This approach is similar to the reaction plane model which has been used to describe acid-base reactions. 

One of the drawbacks of crew-cut micelles is that they systematically require the use of a nonselective solvent for their preparation and they definitely represent out-of-equilibrium micelles once they have been transferred... 

While CMC is assumed to be an observable and definite value in the case of surfactant monomers, there are frequent reports in the literature of the formation of aggregates or micelle-like associations in solutions of organic solutes so dilute as to preclude apparently the formation of micelles [208, 267-269, 272, 275,278]. Work with different types of commercial surfactants has indicated that molecularly non-homogeneous surfactants do not display the sharp inflection in surface tension associated with CMC in molecularly homogeneous monomers, but rather the onset of aggregation is broad and indistinct [253,267,268]. The lack of well-defined CMCs for non-homogeneous surfactants is speculated to result from the successive micellization of the heterogeneous monomers at different stoichiometric concentrations of the surfactant, which results in a breadth of the monomeric-micelle transition zone. 

It has been suggested that glass transition is an important physicochemical event that controls the phase transition process of starch (Biliaderis, 1998). According to Biliaderis (1998), the "fringe-micelle" model (Fig. 5.16) does not permit assignment of a definite Tg for most starches. This is because the change in heat capacity during phase... 

A structure formed by the reversible association of am-phiphiles in apolar solvents. In inverted micelles, the polar portion of the amphiphile is concentrated in the interior of the macrostructure. Such association usually occurs with aggregation and is not typically characterized by a definite nucleation stage. Thus, inverted micelles (also referred to as inverse or reverse micelles) often fail to exhibit critical micelle concentration behavior. See Micelle... 

Calculated concentrations, using (4.9), for the various components, surfactant monomers, counter-ions and micelles, for the case of CTAB micellization (with a cmc of 0.9mM), is shown in Figure 4.5. Clearly, the micelle concentration increases rapidly at the cmc, which explains the sharp transition in surfactant solution properties referred to earlier. It is also interesting to note that the law of mass action (in the form of equation 4.9) predicts an increase in counterion (Br ions) concentration and a decrease in free monomer concentration above the cmc. It has been proposed that for ionic surfactants, a useful definition of the cmc would be... 

Following this, the thermodynamic arguments needed for determining CMC are discussed (Section 8.5). Here, we describe two approaches, namely, the mass action model (based on treating micellization as a chemical reaction ) and the phase equilibrium model (which treats micellization as a phase separation phenomenon). The entropy change due to micellization and the concept of hydrophobic effect are also described, along with the definition of thermodynamic standard states. 

In solutions of surfactants, aggregates are formed at definite concentrations. These micelles, formed at the critical micelle concentration (cmc), are very characteristic and of different shapes... 

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