Title

Critical Micelle Concentration In Three-Dimensional Lattice Models Of Amphiphiles

Abstract

Amphiphilic molecules with hydrophobic tails and hydrophilic heads form micelles of various shapes and sizes above a minimum threshold concentration known as the critical micelle concentration (CMC). The CMC as well as the size and the shape of the aggregates formed depend on various factors, e.g., the length of the amphiphiles, their internal rigidity, and temperature. In this letter we report the results of a detailed investigation of the dependence of the CMC on temperature for different lattice models of the amphiphilic self-assembly. Ensuring that the CMC can be unambiguously associated with a peak in the heat capacity as a function of the amphiphilic concentration, we show that for the amphiphiles of different lengths and head-to-tail ratios, the CMC decreases rapidly as a function of the chain length, consistently with the experimental results. However, for a given chain length, different lattice models predict that the CMC is always an increasing function of temperature. We point out that these lattice models, although widely used, are inadequate to explain the decrease of the CMC with temperature, seen experimentally for non-ionic surfactants.

Publication Date

10-15-2001

Publication Title

Journal of Physics Condensed Matter

Volume

13

Issue

41

Number of Pages

-

Document Type

Article

Personal Identifier

scopus

DOI Link

https://doi.org/10.1088/0953-8984/13/41/101

Socpus ID

0035887354 (Scopus)

Source API URL

https://api.elsevier.com/content/abstract/scopus_id/0035887354

This document is currently not available here.

Share

COinS