Structure of Nonionic Surfactant Micelles in Organic Solvents A SAXS Study

Structure of Nonionic Surfactant Micelles in Organic Solvents A SAXS Study 

Reverse micelles have an inverted structure in comparison to the conventional normal micelles in aqueous systems. Therefore, they are often known as inverse or inverted micelles. In reverse micelles, the micellar cores consist of a hydrophilic polar component and the shells consist of lipophilic nonpolar part of the surfactant molecules. The dipole-dipole interaction between the hydrophilic headgroups acts as one of the driving forces for the formation of reverse micelles in organic solvents. Reverse micelles are mostly observed in the ternary mixtures of surfactant/ water/oil, mostly in oil-rich regions [1-3]. Furthermore, reverse micelles have also been observed in aqueous systems of UpophUic surfactant in surfactant-rich regions [4, 5]. In most of the studies carried out in the past, water was regarded as an essential component in the formulation of reverse micelles. Only a few reports exist in the literature of surfactant science that describe the formation of reverse micelles in organic solvents without water addition [6-10]. 

Sdf-Organized Surfactant Structures. Edited by Tharwat F. Tadros 2010 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH Co. KGaA, Weinheim ISBN 978-3-527-31990-9 

For monodisperse spherical particle systems, the total scattering intensity, I(q), is simply be given as 

For dilute systems, the interparticle interaction is minimum and can be neglected so that the S(q) is identical to unity and I(q) is simply given by P(q). Under this condition Equation 2.1 modifies to 

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