The Millisecond Life of Individual Micelles and their Featureless Appearance

5 The Millisecond Life of Individual Micelles and their Featureless Appearance 

Micelles are a dynamic species, which rapidly break up and reform. In a microsecond time scale, single surfactant molecules retreat from and travel towards micelles, and within milliseconds the whole micelle disintegrates and reassembles . 

Fendler, Membrane Mimetic Chemistry, Wiley, New York, 1982, p. 25f 

Bachmann, W. Dasch, P. Kutter, Ber. Bunsenges, Phys. Chem., 1981, 85, 883 

More interestingly, worm-like micelles without endings were spotted in 0.37 wt % CTAB solutions containing 3.0 wt % of NaBr electrolyte (see section 5.3). Micelles formed by 11-ferrocenylundecyl polyoxyethylene ether were positively stained with osmium tetroxide. The PEG-part then turned black and the ferrocene-undecane part turned out as white featureless spots. The result is again similar to negative staining as no defined osmium ring was detectable. 

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