TY - JOUR
T1 - Premicelles and monomer exchange in aqueous surfactant solutions above and below the critical micelle concentration
AU - Lebard, David N.
AU - Levine, Benjamin G.
AU - DeVane, Russell
AU - Shinoda, Wataru
AU - Klein, Michael L.
N1 - Funding Information:
The authors gratefully acknowledge many useful discussions with Arben Jusufi, Axel Kohlmeyer, Joshua Anderson, Alex Travesset, Athanassios Panagiotopoulos, Samantha Sanders, and Steve Barr. We are also extremely grateful to Axel Kohlmeyer, Joshua Anderson, and Paul Navratil for technical assistance. This work was supported by the National Science Foundation under grant CHE 09-46358 and through TeraGrid resources provided by the Texas Advanced Computing Center, National Center for Supercomputer Applications, and National Institute for Computational Science under Grant Nos. TG-MCA93S020 and TG-ASC090088 . RD and MLK would also like to thank The Procter & Gamble company for generous support.
PY - 2012/1/19
Y1 - 2012/1/19
N2 - Many unusual phenomena in surfactant solutions below the critical micelle concentration have been attributed to the existence of premicelles. Here we investigate the properties of premicelles in aqueous solutions of non-ionic surfactants surrounding the critical micelle concentration (CMC) using advanced computer simulations. The concentration of premicelles increases with total concentration up to the CMC, above which the concentrations of free monomers and premicelles remain nearly constant. Analysis shows premicellar structures ranging from spherical to chain-like. Monomer exchange kinetics are observed to depend strongly on the aggregate size, with premicelles exhibiting extremely short (1.3 ns) relaxation times relative to full sized micelles (72 ns).
AB - Many unusual phenomena in surfactant solutions below the critical micelle concentration have been attributed to the existence of premicelles. Here we investigate the properties of premicelles in aqueous solutions of non-ionic surfactants surrounding the critical micelle concentration (CMC) using advanced computer simulations. The concentration of premicelles increases with total concentration up to the CMC, above which the concentrations of free monomers and premicelles remain nearly constant. Analysis shows premicellar structures ranging from spherical to chain-like. Monomer exchange kinetics are observed to depend strongly on the aggregate size, with premicelles exhibiting extremely short (1.3 ns) relaxation times relative to full sized micelles (72 ns).
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U2 - 10.1016/j.cplett.2011.11.075
DO - 10.1016/j.cplett.2011.11.075
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:84855484091
SN - 0009-2614
VL - 522
SP - 38
EP - 42
JO - Chemical Physics Letters
JF - Chemical Physics Letters
ER -