Chiral Discrimination Effects in Langmuir Monolayers of 1-O-Hexadecyl Glycerol

Abstract

Chiral discrimination effects in the monolayer of 1-O-hexadecyl glycerol (3-hexadecyl-oxy-propane-1,2-diol) amphiphile are theoretically investigated on the basis of a detailed coarse-grained molecular model. The theory uses experimentally obtained information for the average tilt and azimuthal orientation of a reference molecule and minimizes the energy of neighboring molecules using a theoretical framework developed previously. On the basis of the effective pair potential (EPP) of a neighboring pair of molecules, the mutual orientation at the minimum of EPP is obtained. The predicted curvature of the domains composed of enantiomeric amphiphiles based on the mutual orientation obtained from the EPP theory agrees with the experimentally observed handedness based on results from optical studies such as Brewster angle microscopy and fluorescence microscopy. The study revealed, for the first time, interesting crossover from heterochiral preference to homochiral preference of hexadecyl glycerol amphiphile. Th...