Shape of Micelles and Temperature and Concentration Behavior of Optical Refractive Properties: Single Amphiphilic and Mixed Bicomponent Amphiphilic Lyotropic Systems

Abstract

Lyotropic systems are bicomponent and/or multicomponent mixtures display physically isotropic and physically anisotropic properties and exhibit various types of isotropic lyotropic phases and anisotropic lyotropic mesophases. Structure units in lyotropic phases and mesophases are the nano-size three-dimensional nanoparticle supramolecular aggregates as the isometric and anisometric micelles. In this work, comparative investigations of the optical refractive properties of lyotropic micellar systems as mixtures of single amphiphile and mixed bicomponent amphiphiles in polar solvent have been carried out. Lauryltrimethyl ammonium bromide (LTAB) + water, cetyltrimethyl ammonium bromide (CTAB) + water, and (LTAB + CTAB mixture) + water lyotropic systems have been studied. Shapes of micelles in single component amphiphilic and bicomponent amphiphilic lyotropic systems have been estimated. Temperature and concentration dependences of the optical refractive index have been determined. Effect of the LTAB/CTAB concentration ratio on the refractive properties of mixtures under investigations has been found. Effect of length of the hydrophobic chain of amphiphile molecules with the same hydrophilic part on the refractive index of lyotropic systems is analysed.