The effect of added salt, NaCl, on micellization and structural properties of four enantiomeric/racemic surfactant pairs obtained from partially fluorinated octylesters (PFOEs) and hydrogenated dodecylesters (DDEs) of alanine and serine were investigated by electrical conductivity, surface tension, dynamic light scattering (DLS), and transmission electron microscopy (TEM). The Krafft temperatures, the critical micelle concentrations, the degree of counter−ion ionization, and the Gibbs free energy of micellization were determined. The Gibbs free energy of adsorption of the esters at the air/solution interface was greater than that of micellization. The hydrodynamic radius (R H ) increased with salt concentration, and the polydispersity index exhibited a shift from monodisperse to polydisperse aggregates. The PFOEs of serine could incorporate only a minimum amount of salt, but it exhibited the largest R H (37.9 nm). DLS and TEM results indicated that the esters formed micelles of spherical shapes. Neither of the methods could detect an appreciable difference in the micelle sizes of the L-and DL-amphiphiles. The DDEs exhibited greater antibacterial activity against some gram−positive bacteria than the reference antibiotic, tetracycline, but the PFOEs did not show any activity.
■ INTRODUCTIONSurfactants, (amphiphilic molecules) owing to the delicate balance of their hydrophilic and hydrophobic moieties, selfassociate in water to form aggregates called micelles. The micelle formation first occurs at a certain minimum concentration called critical micelle concentration (cmc). This is of paramount importance because the application of surfactants in technology and science is based on the formation of a micelle structure that is able to solubilize a large number of ionic, polar, or neutral materials.The structure of micelles of chiral amphiphilic molecules, because their properties related to chiral recognition may be of importance, then the most biologically active compounds vital to life are chiral. Therefore, in the foregoing paper we studied the micellization process in aqueous solution of a new class of enantiomeric and racemic amphiphilic esters (surfactants) obtained from esterification of the amino acids, alanine (A), and serine (S) with partially fluorinated n-octyl alcohol and hydrogenated dodecyl alcohol, respectively. 1 As a result, we found that the cmc values, the thermodynamic functions (ΔG mic°, ΔH mic°, ΔS mic°) , the adsorption parameters at the air/ water interface (the surface excess concentration, Γ max , the minimum area per headgroup of the molecule, A min , and the surface tension at the cmc, γ cmc ) and the volumetric parameters (the changes in the molal volumes, ΔV φ mic ) of the partially fluorinated esters were strikingly different from those of the hydrogenated ones.Among the adsorption parameters, the quantities, Γ max and A min , for the partially fluorinated octylesters PFOEs of serine were particularly different from all of the studied systems. For comparison and space saving purposes onl...