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The difficulty in filling the volume of the interior of a bilayer, while accommodating the area per head group forced on the molecule by the hydration of the lipid head group, leads to the formation of the micelle. This type of micelle is known as a normal-phase micelle (or oil-in-water micelle).
Amphiphilic compounds have lipophilic (typically hydrocarbon) structures and hydrophilic polar functional groups (either ionic or uncharged). [citation needed] As a result of having both lipophilic and hydrophilic portions, some amphiphilic compounds may dissolve in water and to some extent in non-polar organic solvents.
Many amphiphilic molecules show lyotropic liquid-crystalline phase sequences depending on the volume balances between the hydrophilic part and hydrophobic part. These structures are formed through the micro-phase segregation of two incompatible components on a nanometer scale. Soap is an everyday example of a lyotropic liquid crystal.
A soap bubble Girl blowing bubbles Many bubbles make foam. A soap bubble (commonly referred to as simply a bubble) is an extremely thin film of soap or detergent and water enclosing air that forms a hollow sphere with an iridescent surface. Soap bubbles usually last for only a few seconds before bursting, either on their own or on contact with ...
The shape of a micelle is directly dependent on the packing parameter of the surfactant. Surfactants with a packing parameter of N S {\displaystyle N_{\text{S}}} ≤ 1/3 appear to have a cone-like shape which will pack together to form spherical micelles when in an aqueous environment (top in figure).
A mixture of soap and water is an everyday example of a lyotropic liquid crystal. Biological structures such as fibrous proteins showings relatively long and well-defined hydrophobic and hydrophilic ‘‘blocks’’ of aminoacids can also show lyotropic liquid crystalline behaviour.
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A micelle is a monolayer, and the phospholipid lipid bilayer structure of biological membranes is technically two monolayers. Langmuir monolayers are commonly used to mimic cell membrane to study the effects of pharmaceuticals or toxins. [4]