Ionic and non-ionic surfactants: Micelles, reverse micelles and micro heterogenous systems

Abstract

Surfactants are surface-active agents which belong to the category of amphiphilic molecules. Indeed, surfactants are characterized for the presence of polar and apolar domains in the same compound. They can form different types of aggregates, such as those known as micelles, being that the concentration at which they form these micelles is called critical micellar concentration (cmc). The different aggregation states of the surfactant (monomer, pre-micellar aggregate, micelle, and liposomes) can present different properties in terms of capability of chemical interaction. The presence of these different configurations and/or the variation of concentration of each one alters the physicochemical properties of the chemical systems with ionic and non-ionic surfactants. The micro heterogenous systems originated by these surfactants have been widely studied in literature to infer several aspects related to similar media that are encountered in the biological tissues.