Triton micellar shape

Mesophase structures self-assembled from surfactants (Figure 8.35) provide another class of useful and versatile templates for generating ID nanostructures in relatively large quantities. It is well known that at critical micellar concentration (CMC) surfactant molecules spontaneously organize into rod-shaped micelles [315c]. These anisotropic structures can be used immediately as soft templates to promote the formation of nanorods when coupled with appropriate chemical or electrochemical reaction. The surfactant needs to be selectively removed to collect the nanorods/nanowires as a relatively pure sample. Based on this principle, nanowires of CuS, CuSe, CdS, CdSe, ZnS and ZnSe have been grown selectively by using surfactants such as Na-AOT or Triton X of known concentrations [238, 246]. 

The nanoparticles have been synthesized in different microemulsion systems. Some of them are shown in Fig. 1. The anionic Aerosol-OT (AOT)/ heptane/water system is one of the best characterized microemulsions [8,9]. The system AOT/ -xylene/water [10] has also been used. The cationic ce-tyltrimethylammonium bromide (CTAB)/hexanol/water system contains hex-anol, which forms the organic phase and plays the role of cosurfactant [11]. The nonionic penta(ethylene glycol)-dodecylether (PEGDE)/hexane/water was studied by Eriberg and Eapczynska [12]. The reverse micellar droplets have a cylindrical shape in which the surfactant molecules are parallel to each other, forming a bilayer impregnated with water. Triton X-100... 

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