Concentration Of Reverse Micelles Research Articles

How the CMC adjust the liquid mixture density and viscosity of non-ionic surfactants at various temperatures?

This paper measures the critical micelle or reverse micelle concentration (CMC) of non-ionic surfactants including Tween and Span series using conductometric technique associated with titration method which still has not been applied for aforesaid surfactants. Likewise, the influence of temperature on the micellization parameter of four consumed surfactants (Tween 60, Tween 80, Span 60, and Span 80) has been examined at different temperatures range (298.15 to 318.65) K, and a second-order polynomial has been correlated in order to compute the CMC of above-mentioned surfactants as a function of temperature. Additionally, the thermodynamic properties of micellization (ΔGmic, ΔHmic, ΔSmic) have been obtained for these surfactants. Moreover, significant thermodynamic properties involving liquid mixture density and viscosity have been determined at (293.15 to 313.15) K. The mentioned thermodynamic characteristics have decreased below CMC for all surfactants. Eventually, it has been demonstrated, the CMC occurs at the minimum points of the measured thermodynamic properties.

Combining Freezing Point Depression and Self-Diffusion Data for Characterizing Aggregation.

The colligative property freezing point depression is evaluated as a means for estimating the extent of aggregation for solutions of poly(ethylene oxide) alcohol (C10E6) nonionic surfactant in cyclohexane. Combined with additional measurements of self-diffusion coefficients, it is shown that both unaggregated C10E6 as well as reverse micelles are significantly present for the entire range of measured C10E6 concentration (0.048-2.35 mol kg-1). A change in speciation near 0.2 mol kg-1 is indicated by the results from both freezing point depression and self-diffusion coefficient measurements. It is shown that average reverse micelle radii and aggregation numbers obtained from the ratio of solvent and C10E6 self-diffusion coefficients are consistent with prior reported results. However, unreasonably small radii for the reverse micelles as well as for the cyclohexane were obtained from analysis of the results by the Stokes-Einstein equation using additional measured solution viscosities. The concentration of reverse micelles and unaggregated C10E6 was calculated from the freezing point depression results using the aggregation numbers obtained from ratio of self-diffusion coefficients. These concentrations indicate that the reverse micelles become smaller in average size and increase in number with increasing temperature without an increase in unaggregated C10E6.

Specifics of the formation of J-aggregates of cyanine dyes in solutions of AOT/water/hexane reverse micelles

The behavior of a cyanine dye (3,3′-di-(gamma-sulfopropyl)-4,5,4′,5′-dibenzo-9-ethylthiacarbocyanine betaine pyridinium salt) was studied in AOT/water/hexane reverse micelles over a wide range of W at various concentrations of the dye, AOT, and reverse micelles. The processes occurring during the formation of the AOT/water/hexane micellar solution were studied in detail. It has been shown that, before the formation of the stable microemulsion, the dye aggregation processes occur by virtue of the interaction of the dye with the AOT anion. The amount of J-aggregates is proportional to the logarithm of the ratio of the amount of AOT molecules to the amount of dye molecules. The time behavior of J-aggregates after the formation of a micellar structure depends on the concentration of reverse micelles, thereby indicating an important role of intermicellar exchange.

On the composition fluctuations of reverse micelles

The polydispersity of the reverse micelles is determined mainly by the fluctuations of their composition. The composition of the reverse micelle is a two-dimensional random variable whose components are the numbers of water (i) and surfactant (j) molecules. In this study the fluctuations of the composition of the reverse micelles are considered in the Gaussian approximation. It is shown that the standard deviation of the quantity w=i/j may be calculated from the dependence of the water vapor pressure above the microemulsion on the molar ratio W=[water]/[surfactant]. The estimation based on the literature data for microemulsion system sodium bis(2-ethylhexyl)sulfosuccinate/water/isooctane at 37°C in the range W=0-18 has shown that the relative standard deviation of the quantity w is about 10%. It is shown that the value of the composition fluctuations is related to the dependence of average composition on the concentration of reverse micelles at constant parameter W.

Fluorescence lifetime imaging microscopy and fluorescence resonance energy transfer from cyan to yellow fluorescent protein validates a novel method to cluster proteins on solid surfaces

A novel method to distribute proteins on solid surfaces is proposed. Proteins microencapsulated in the water pool of reverse micelles were used to coat a solid surface with well-individualized round spots of 1 to 3 microm in diameter. The number of spots per unit area can be increased through the concentration of reverse micelles, and networks of spots were obtained at high concentrations of large reverse micelles. Moreover, depending on the pool size of the water reverse micelles, proteins can be deposited far from each other or in close proximity within the range of 50 to 70 A. This proximity obtained with small reverse micelles was proved through fluorescence lifetime imaging microscopy and fluorescence resonance energy transfer (FLIM-FRET) measurements for the most relevant FRET pair in cell biology studies, the cyan and yellow fluorescent proteins. This novel procedure has several advantages and reveals the potential for study of protein-protein interactions on solid surfaces and for developing novel biomaterials and molecular devices based on biorecognition elements.

Interaction between reverse micelles as a key factor governing back-extraction of proteins and its control systems

The interfacial transport processes of proteins from a reverse micellar phase to an aqueous phase have been investigated focusing on micellar-micellar interaction. The proteins solubilized into reverse micelles were back-extracted to the aqueous phase depending on the concentration of reverse micelles in organic phase. This fact seems to suggest the importance of micellar-micellar interactions in back-extraction processes. The interactions induced by various alcohol addition and temperature change could be evaluated easily and quantitatively by the percolation phenomena in reverse micellar systems (RVMS). The interactions were influenced considerably by the presence of small amount of alcohol and temperature in the RVMS. The addition of alcohols promotes the back-extraction of proteins depending on their species and concentrations. In particular, the alcohols that suppress the cluster formation of reverse micelles, remarkably improve the back-extraction processes. With a small amount of alcohol (20 mM OctOH), Bovine carbonic anhydrase (CAB) can be back-extracted completely from reverse micelles to aqueous solution at the optimal temperature, in which the so high concentration of salt is not necessary.

Charge Stabilization in Nonpolar Solvents

While the important role of electrostatic interactions in aqueous colloidal suspensions is widely known and reasonably well-understood, their relevance to nonpolar suspensions remains mysterious. We measure the interaction potentials of colloidal particles in a nonpolar solvent with reverse micelles. We find surprisingly strong electrostatic interactions characterized by surface potentials, |ezeta|, from 2.0 to 4.4 k(B)T and screening lengths, kappa(-1), from 0.2 to 1.4 microm. Interactions depend on the concentration of reverse micelles and the degree of confinement. Furthermore, when the particles are weakly confined, the values of |ezeta| and kappa extracted from interaction measurements are consistent with bulk measurements of conductivity and electrophoretic mobility. A simple thermodynamic model, relating the structure of the micelles to the equilibrium ionic strength, is in good agreement with both conductivity and interaction measurements. Since dissociated ions are solubilized by reverse micelles, the entropic incentive to charge a particle surface is qualitatively changed from aqueous systems, and surface entropy plays an important role.

Reverse micelles, a system for antibody-catalysed reactions

This work presents some aspects of the application of catalytic antibodies in water-in-oil microemulsions (reverse micelles) based on sodium bis-2-(ethylhexyl)sulfosuccinate (AOT) in isooctane. The monoclonal antibody (mAb) 9A8 used in this study is a fully characterised acetylcholinesterase-like antibody produced by the anti-idiotypic approach. The effect of various parameters, such as, the size and the concentration of reverse micelles, as well as the concentration and the nature of substrates on abzyme catalytic activity were investigated.