Question

How micelles are obtained ? Give also mechanism

Answer 1

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When soap molecules are present in water, the molecules arrange themselves in the form of a cluster in such a manner that their hydrophobic ends are away from the water molecules, and their hydrophilic or ionic ends are towards the water molecules. This is known as micelle formation and the cluster that is formed is called a micelle.

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Answer 2

The mechanism of micelle formation of surfactants sodium dodecyl sulfate (SDS), n-hexyldecyltrimethylammonium bromide (CTAB) and Triton X-100 (TX-100) in heavy water solutions was studied by 1H NMR (chemical shift and line shape) and NMR self-diffusion experiments.1H NMR and self-diffusion experiments of these three surfactants show that their chemical shifts (δ) begin to change and resonance peaks begins to broaden with the increase in concentration significantly below their critical micelle concentrations (cmcʼs). At the same time, self-diffusion coefficients (D) of the surfactant molecules decrease simultaneously as their concentrations increase. These indicate that when the concentrations are near and lower than their cmcʼs, there are oligomers (premicelles) formed in these three surfactant systems. Carefully examining the dependence of chemical shift and self-diffusion coefficient on concentration in the region just slightly above their cmcʼs, one finds that the pseudophase transition model is not applicable to the variation of physical properties (chemical shift and self-diffusion coefficient) with concentration of these systems. This indicates that premicelles still exist in this concentration region along with the formation of micelles. The curved dependence of chemical shift and self-diffusion coefficient on the increase in concentration suggests that the premicelles grow as the concentration increases until a definite value when the size of the premicelle reaches that of the micelle, i.e., the system is likely dominated by the monomers and micelles. Additionally, the approximate values of premicelle coming forth concentration (pmc) and cmc were obtained by again fitting chemical shifts to reciprocals of concentrations at a different perspective, and are in good accordant with experimental results and literature values and prove the former conclusion.