Effect of the Physicochemical Properties of Liquid Paraffin on the Phase State and Rheological Properties of Lecithin Reverse Wormlike Micelles

Lecithin reverse wormlike micelles (LRWs) have been studied recently for dermal application dosage use but the effects of the physicochemical properties of oils on the formation and rheological properties of LRWs have not been investigated. We studied the effect of oil on the formation of LRWs using 5 types of liquid paraffin (LP) with kinematic viscosities ranging from 4.00 to 88.0 mm²/s. Partial phase diagrams of lecithin/water/LP systems indicated that LPs with low molecular weights could form LRWs with only a small amount of water, but LPs with high molecular weights could not form LRWs, regardless of the water concentration. The solubility of lecithin in LPs was higher for low molecular weight LPs, thus possibly affecting the formation of LRWs. The zero-shear viscosity and relaxation time of LRWs initially increased with increasing water concentration, and then decreased. The water concentration providing the maximum value was dependent on the molecular weight of the LP, whereas the maximum amount and length of the LRWs were independent of the water concentration. Our results indicate that the molecular weight of LP affects the ease of formation and the viscoelasticity of LRWs.

A light-responsive organofluid based on reverse worm-like micelles formed from an equi-charged, mixed, anionic gemini surfactant with an azobenzene spacer and a cationic conventional surfactant

An equally-charged mixture of an anionic gemini surfactant, O,O'-bis(sodium 2-tetradecylcarboxylate)-p-azodiphendiol (G14-azo), and a cationic surfactant, cetyltrimethylammonium bromide (CTAB), was dissolved in cyclohexane to form reverse worm-like micelles. Samples with different surfactant concentrations and amounts of added water were studied using rheological measurements. The amount of water, represented as the molar ratio of water to total surfactants W0, was c. 13 (at its minimum) in these equally charged systems of G14-azo (200 mmol L(-1))/CTAB. The low shear viscosity ηL of this system reached 4370 Pa s at W0 = 13 and the dynamic rheological result showed typical surfactant gel behaviour. Under UV-light irradiation, the transparent sample (G14-azo (300 mmol L(-1))/CTAB (600 mmol L(-1))) at W0 = 40 became turbid, during which ηL was rapidly reduced from the original 285 Pa s to 0.3 Pa s, indicating a transition of aggregate morphology from reverse worms into simple reverse micelles. Then the sample was returned to its original homogeneous state with c. 290 Pa s viscosity under visible light irradiation. However, this transition cannot be well achieved at low W0 due to the interior cores being too small. This limit has been attributed to both the Gemini type of surfactant molecule and to the inverted structure of aggregates.

Molecular interactions between lecithin and bile salts/acids in oils and their effects on reverse micellization

It has been known that the addition of bile salts to lecithin organosols induces the formation of reverse wormlike micelles and that the worms are similar to long polymer chains that entangle each other to form viscoelastic solutions. In this study, we further investigated the effects of different bile salts and bile acids on the growth of lecithin reverse worms in cyclohexane and n-decane. We utilized rheological and small-angle scattering techniques to analyze the properties and structures of the reverse micelles. All of the bile salts can transform the originally spherical lecithin reverse micelles into wormlike micelles and their rheological behaviors can be described by the single-relaxation-time Maxwell model. However, their efficiencies to induce the worms are different. In contrast, before phase separation, bile acids can induce only short cylindrical micelles that are not long enough to impart viscoelasticity. We used Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy to investigate the interactions between lecithin and bile salts/acids and found that different bile salts/acids employ different functional groups to form hydrogen bonds with lecithin. Such effects determine the relative positions of the bile salts/acids in the headgroups of lecithin, thus resulting in varying efficiencies to alter the effective critical packing parameter for the formation of wormlike micelles. This work highlights the importance of intermolecular interactions in molecular self-assembly.