The persistence length of linear surfactants modulates the self-assembly of reverse micelles and their diffusion in nonpolar solvents

Abstract

The self-assembly of linear model surfactants into reverse micelles (RMs) in a nonpolar solvent is studied here for two surfactant lengths, through numerical simulations. The study was carried out at...

From microemulsion phase diagrams to hydrophilicity and hydration controlled adsorption: a dissipative particle dynamics modelling study of phospholipid assembly in bio oils

“…The self-repulsion parameter a ii for GLYS, TAIL, Water and the SURF beads is set to 25k B T, derived from water isothermal compressibility at DPD particle density r = 3, and a common choice also in DPD modelling of other solvent species. 80,87,88 For CHOL beads, a ii = 30 is used to better reflect the charged nature and increased self-attraction resulting from the zwitterionic DPPC head group. Notably, no electrostatic interactions are explicitly present in the model and the modification to CHOL self-repulsion is purely an effective modification.…”

Synergy between surfactants’ stiffness and concentration on their self-assembly into reverse micelles as water droplet carriers in nonpolar solvents

“…Table 1 shows the values of the parameters a ij used in this work, which have been successfully tested in previous reports. In particular, with the parameters in Table 1, faster aggregation was achieved of both direct (using Gemini surfactants) [38] and reverse micelles (using linear surfactants) [33] in aqueous and nonpolar solvents, respectively. Further details for the calculation of a ij parameters can be found elsewhere [39].…”

“…Dissipative particle dynamics (DPD) is a coarse-grained simulation method developed to study the hydrodynamic properties of complex fluids [27,28]. Several DPD works have delved into the study of the mechanisms that lead to the self-assembly of different classes of surfactants into direct [29,30] or reverse micelles [31][32][33]. Recently, Lavagnini et al [34] provide a detailed report about the parametrization of the chemical structure of various types of ester-, amide-, and sugar-based surfactants into DPD-parametrized structures.…”

“…Despite all the work there is around RMs, it is still necessary to invest efforts in the study of these systems to improve the understanding of both the self-association process in the formation of aggregates and the technological/industrial implementation of RMs. This work presents the study of structural and dynamic properties of the self-assembly process of linear surfactants into RMs in nonpolar solvents [33]. It has been reported that the self-assembly of linear surfactants into RMs is modulated by their persistence length (L p ), for fixed molecular water/surfactant ratio of 1:1 and at constant surfactant's concentration (c s ) [33].…”

“…This work presents the study of structural and dynamic properties of the self-assembly process of linear surfactants into RMs in nonpolar solvents [33]. It has been reported that the self-assembly of linear surfactants into RMs is modulated by their persistence length (L p ), for fixed molecular water/surfactant ratio of 1:1 and at constant surfactant's concentration (c s ) [33]. Here, cooperative effects are reported on the structural and dynamic properties of the self-assembly process forming water/surfactant aggregates in nonpolar solvents.…”