No abstract

The mechanism of oil detachment from solid surfaces in aqueous surfactant solutions is studied by molecular dynamics simulations. At the initial simulation, the hydrophilic silica surface changes into a hydrophobic one due to the adsorption of the alkane molecules. Two-dimensional ordered arrangement of alkane molecules on the first layer is the key to the oil detachment from the silica surface. Upon addition of cetyltrimethylammonium bromide (CTAB) solution, the alkane molecules on the solid surface can be detached from a hydrophilic silica surface. Ultimately, the silica surface becomes hydrophilic, and the oil molecules are solubilized in the surfactant micelles. During the process of oil detachment, it is demonstrated that the formation of a water channel in the oil phase between the surfactant solution and the silica surface is vital for the oil detachment. Meanwhile, water molecules can penetrate the oil-water interface by diffusion and form the gel layer at the water-silica interface under the hydrogen-bonding and electrostatic interaction, in the close vicinity of the contact line. Both of these will accelerate the removal of the oil molecules from the silica surface under the surfactant solution. According to the energy and configurations with time evolution, one three-stage model of oil detachment from the silica surface is developed at the molecular level. The simulation results agree with the experimental phenomenon.

The effect of Ca(2+) ions on the hydration shell of sodium dodecyl carboxylate (SDC) and sodium dodecyl sulfonate (SDSn) monolayer at vapor/liquid interfaces was studied using molecular dynamics simulations. For each surfactant, two different surface concentrations were used to perform the simulations, and the aggregation morphologies and structural details have been reported. The results showed that the aggregation structures relate to both the surface coverage and the calcium ions. The divalent ions can screen the interaction between the polar head and Na(+) ions. Thus, Ca(2+) ions locate near the vapor/liquid interface to bind to the headgroup, making the aggregations much more compact via the salt bridge. The potential of mean force (PMF) between Ca(2+) and the headgroups shows that the interaction is decided by a stabilizing solvent-separated minimum in the PMF. To bind to the headgroup, Ca(2+) should overcome the energy barrier. Among contributions to the PMF, the major repulsive interaction was due to the rearrangement of the hydration shell after the calcium ions entered into the hydration shell of the headgroup. The PMFs between the headgroup and Ca(2+) in the SDSn systems showed higher energy barriers than those in the SDC systems. This result indicated that SDSn binds the divalent ions with more difficulty compared with SDC, so the ions have a strong effect on the hydration shell of SDC. That is why sulfonate surfactants have better efficiency in salt solutions with Ca(2+) ions for enhanced oil recovery.

A fluoro-substituted cyanine showing reliable in vivo labelling of Aβ oligomers and potent neuroprotective effect against Aβ-induced toxicities is reported as a novel theranostic agent for the early diagnosis and therapy of Alzheimer's disease.

Photoswitchable fluorescent diarylethenes are promising in molecular optical memory and photonic devices. However, the performance of current diarylethenes is far from satisfactory because of the scarcity of high-speed switching capability and large fluorescence on-off ratio. Here we report a trident perylenemonoimide dyad modified by triple dithienylethenes whose photochromic fluorescence quenching ratio at the photostationary state exceeds 10,000 and the fluorescence quenching efficiency is close to 100% within seconds of ultraviolet irradiation. The highly sensitive fluorescence on/off switching of the trident dyad enables recyclable fluorescence patterning and all-optical transistors. The prototype optical device based on the trident dyad enables the optical switching of incident light and conversion from incident light wavelength to transmitted light wavelength, which is all-optically controlled, reversible and wavelength-convertible. In addition, the trident dyad-staining block copolymer vesicles are observed via optical nanoimaging with a sub-100 nm resolution, portending a potential prospect of the dithienylethene dyad in super-resolution imaging.