Effect of temperature on the reverse self-assembly of lecithin and sugar alcohol mixtures in a nonpolar solvent

Abstract

It has been shown that the addition of sugar alcohols to lecithin solutions induces a transformation from reverse spherical micelles into reverse cylindrical micelles, resulting in the formation of viscoelastic Maxwell fluids. Herein, we systematically investigated the effects of temperature on the rheological parameters, such as the plateau modulus (Gp), relaxation time (tR), and zero-shear viscosity (η0), of lecithin and sugar alcohol mixtures in decane. The rheological properties upon heating of mixtures of lecithin and sugar alcohols with different numbers (3–6) of hydroxyl (–OH) groups and concentrations were studied in detail. Gp, tR, and η0 for all reverse cylindrical micelles decreased with temperature. This decrease can be attributed to a reduction in the lengths of the reverse cylindrical micelles, as evidenced by the small-angle X-ray scattering results at different temperatures. More importantly, the decay rates of Gp, tR, and η0 upon heating decreased more rapidly when the hydrogen bonds between the lecithin and sugar alcohol molecules were weaker as the hydrogen bonds were closely associated with the formation of the reverse self-assembled structure. This indicates that the driving force for the formation of reverse cylindrical micelles can be weakened by increasing the temperature.