Shaping vesicles-controlling size and stability by admixture of amphiphilic copolymer

Phase Diagram Study of Catanionic Surfactants Using Dissipative Particle Dynamics

Dissipative particle dynamics (DPD) simulations has been performed to study the phase transition of a mixture of cationic and anionic surfactants in an aqueous solution as a function of the total concentration in water and the relative ratio of surfactants. The impact of the relative difference between the tail lengths of the cationic and anionic surfactants on the phase diagram has been simulated by tuning the number of DPD beads in the simulation model. This research also discusses the impact of the frequently used values of the parameters associated with the harmonic bonds among the bonded DPD beads on the obtained self-assemblies. We find remarkable differences in the resultant self-assemblies based on different choices of harmonic bond parameters. The performed simulations show an enhanced spectrum of self-assemblies with augmented tail lengths and disparate harmonic bond parameters. The obtained self-assemblies are quite unique and can potentially be used in the future for various applications. We also compare the simulation results of the vesicle structures obtained by modeling the electrostatic interaction in the simulation among the charged beads by explicitly introducing charges with a long-range interaction with those obtained by tuning the implicit electrostatic interaction without the long-range interaction. The effects of the chain length of the model and the harmonic bond parameters on the internal density of DPD beads and stress profiles within the vesicles are examined closely. These results are a significant contribution to understanding the stability of the phases and tailoring of the desired vesicles.

Growth of Myelin Figures from Parent Multilamellar Vesicles

We examine the formation and growth of isolated myelin figures and microscale multilamellar tubules from isotropic micellar solutions of an anionic surfactant. Upon cooling, surfactant micelles transform into multilamellar vesicles (MLVs) whose contact is found to trigger the unidirectional growth of myelins. While the MLV diameter grows as d_MLV ∝ t^1/2, myelins grow linearly in time as L_M ∝ t¹, with a fixed diameter. Combining time-resolved small-angle neutron scattering (SANS) and optical microscopy, we demonstrate that the microscopic growth of spherical MLVs and cylindrical myelins stems from the same nanoscale molecular mechanism, namely, the surfactant exchange from micelles into curved lamellar structures at a constant volumetric rate. This mechanism successfully describes the growth rate of (nonequilibrium) myelin figures based on a population balance at thermodynamic equilibrium.

Aescin - a natural soap for the formation of lipid nanodiscs with tunable size

The saponin β-aescin from the seed extract of the horse chestnut tree Aesculus hippocastanum has demonstrated a beneficial role in clinical therapy which is in part related to its strong interaction with biological membranes. In this context the present work investigates the self-assembly of nm-sized discoidal lipid nanoparticles composed of β-aescin and the phospholipid 1,2-dimyristoyl-sn-glycero-3-phosphocholine (DMPC). The discoidal lipid nanoparticles reassemble from small discs into larger discs, ribbons and finally stacks of sheets upon heating from gel-phase to fluid phase DMPC. The morphological transition of the lipid nano-particles is mainly triggered by the phospholipid phase state change. The final morphology depends on the phospholipid-to-saponin ratio and the actual temperature. The study is conducted by small-angle X-ray scattering (SAXS) and transmission (TEM) and freeze fracture electron microscopy (FFEM) are used to cover larger length scales. Two different models, representing a disc and ribbon-like shape are applied to the SAXS data, evaluating possible geometries and molecular mixing of the nano-particles. The stacked sheets are analysed by the Caillé theory.

Micellar structure and transformations in sodium alkylbenzenesulfonate (NaLAS) aqueous solutions: effects of concentration, temperature, and salt

We investigate the shape, dimensions, and transformation pathways of micelles of linear sodium alkylbenzenesulfonate (NaLAS), a common anionic surfactant, in aqueous solution. Employing Small Angle Neutron Scattering (SANS) and surface tensiometry, we quantify the effects of surfactant concentration (0.6-15 wt%), temperature (5-40 °C) and added salt (≤0.35 M Na2SO4). Spherical micelles form at low NaLAS (≤2.6 wt%) concentration in water, and become elongated with increasing concentration and decreasing temperature. Addition of salt reduces the critical micelle concentration (CMC) and thus promotes the formation of micelles. At fixed NaLAS concentration, salt addition causes spherical micelles to grow into cylindrical micelles, and then multilamellar vesicles (MLVs), which we examine by SANS and cryo-TEM. Above a threshold salt concentration, the MLVs reach diameters of 100 s of nm to few μm, eventually causing precipitation. While the salt concentrations associated with the micelle-to-cylinder transformation increase only slightly with temperature, those required for the cylinder-to-MLV transformation exhibit a pronounced, linear temperature dependence, which we examine in detail. Our study establishes a solution structure map for this model anionic surfactant in water, quantifying the combined roles of concentration, temperature and salt, at practically relevant conditions.

A Versatile Strategy for Unimolecular Micelle-Derived Hollow Polymer Nanoparticles as General Nanoreactors

We reported the synthesis of a well-defined hollow polymer nanoparticle derived from star-shaped unimolecular micelles. β-Cyclodextrin was first applied as an efficient macroinitiator to prepare a star-shaped PCL via ring-opening polymerization (ROP). Then, the star-shaped PCL was modified to be a macro-RAFT agent for photoinduced electron/energy transfer-reversible addition-fragmentation chain transfer (PET-RAFT) polymerization of S-Cl monomers. The prepared unimolecular micelles can be photocross-linked under UV irradiation after a simple nucleophilic substitution reaction, which made -Cl groups to be -N₃ groups. After the selective removal of the PCL core, hollow polymer nanoparticles were achieved and exhibited to be a general nanoreactor strategy for the fabrication of nanocrystals with well-controlled architectures. Compared with unimolecular micelle templates, the nanocrystals prepared by hollow templates are absolutely pure as no polymer chains are embedded in the inorganic nanocrystals. In addition, by changing the concentration of the precursor, the structure of the nanocrystal can be changed from a normal spherical structure to a hollow structure.

Synchrotron Scattering Methods for Nanomaterials and Soft Matter Research

This article aims to provide an overview of broad range of applications of synchrotron scattering methods in the investigation of nanoscale materials. These scattering techniques allow the elucidation of the structure and dynamics of nanomaterials from sub-nm to micron size scales and down to sub-millisecond time ranges both in bulk and at interfaces. A major advantage of scattering methods is that they provide the ensemble averaged information under in situ and operando conditions. As a result, they are complementary to various imaging techniques which reveal more local information. Scattering methods are particularly suitable for probing buried structures that are difficult to image. Although, many qualitative features can be directly extracted from scattering data, derivation of detailed structural and dynamical information requires quantitative modeling. The fourth-generation synchrotron sources open new possibilities for investigating these complex systems by exploiting the enhanced brightness and coherence properties of X-rays.

Neutralisation rate controls the self-assembly of pH-sensitive surfactants

The degree of ionisation of a weakly acidic surfactant can be continuously modified from nonionic to ionic by adjusting the pH. This property can be used to control the curvature and therefore the morphology of the self-assembled aggregates it forms in solution. Herein, we report the surprising phenomenon, observed in the alkyl ether oligo(ethylene oxide) carboxylate (CH3(CH2)11/13OEO4.5CH2COOH), whereby it is not only the pH but also the neutralisation rate that affects the aggregate morphology. Specifically, when the pH is increased slowly, up to 40 wt% of the surfactant remains in a long-lived vesicle state at high pH. This phenomenon was characterised in detail by small-angle neutron scattering and light scattering techniques. The cause of this phenomenon is thought to be related to a combination of polydispersity and the formation of acid-carboxylate dimers close to the pKa. The transition of these vesicles to the thermodynamically favoured micelles at high pH is inhibited by a high activation energy barrier and therefore only occurs very slowly. Increasing the NaCl concentration eliminates the presence of vesicles at high pH, demonstrating that the activation energy for the vesicle-to-micelle transition depends strongly on electrostatic interactions. These experiments show that the preparation pathway can be used to obtain different self-assembled structures at identical conditions via kinetic control. This phenomenon provides a useful tool for devising formulations where the properties of the system can be altered without changing the composition.

Formation of Well-Defined Vesicles by Styrene Addition to a Nonionic Surfactant and Their Polymerization Leading to Viscous Hybrid Systems

Self-assembled structures in aqueous solutions can be fixed by polymerization after adding hydrophobic monomers and can thereby be used as templates which allow to substantially alter the properties of these systems. In this work, we started from a self-assembled micellar system consisting of the nonionic surfactants tetradecyldimethylamine oxid and Pluronic L35 to which styrene was added as a polymerizable monomer. Interestingly, it was observed that styrene induces a transition from micelles to well-defined vesicles in a similar manner as a typical cosurfactant. The structural transition of the aggregates upon styrene addition as well as the structures formed after initiating a polymerization reaction were investigated by means of turbidity, dynamic and static light scattering, small-angle neutron scattering, and rheology measurements. Especially the scattering results confirmed the interesting effect of styrene on the mesoscopic structure and showed a structural evolution from rod-like micelles for low styrene concentrations to vesicles at intermediate styrene amounts, and then finally the formation of microemulsion droplets for high styrene content. Their polymerization of the vesicles again leads to a shape change to wormlike, polymerized aggregates, whose presence then results in rather viscous systems. In contrast, the microemulsions with higher styrene content then are templated and retain their size after polymerization, thereby leading to nanolattices.

Inward growth by nucleation: Multiscale self-assembly of ordered membranes

Striking morphological similarities found between superstructures of a wide variety of seemingly unrelated crystalline membrane systems hint at the existence of a common formation mechanism. Resembling systems such as multiwalled carbon nanotubes, bacterial protein shells, or peptide nanotubes, the self-assembly of SDS/β-cyclodextrin complexes leads to monodisperse multilamellar microtubes. We uncover the mechanism of this hierarchical self-assembly process by time-resolved small- and ultrasmall-angle x-ray scattering. In particular, we show that symmetric crystalline bilayers bend into hollow cylinders as a consequence of membrane line tension and an anisotropic elastic modulus. Starting from single-walled microtubes, successive nucleation of new cylinders inside preexisting ones drives an inward growth. As both the driving forces that underlie the self-assembly behavior and the resulting morphologies are common to systems of ordered membranes, we believe that this formation mechanism has a similarly general applicability.

Kinetics of Oil Exchange in Nanoemulsions Prepared with the Phase Inversion Concentration Method

Nanoemulsions (NEs) are metastable emulsions with droplet sizes between 20 and 100 nm and with a wide range of applications, for example, in polymerization, in pharmaceutical and cosmetic formulations, and as drug delivery systems. Even though they are not in thermodynamic equilibrium, they can be metastable over relatively long times and have the advantage that they can be formed easily by low energy input methods. In particular, the phase inversion concentration (PIC) method allows the formation of NEs by the dilution of a suitable mixture of oil and surfactants with water. In this paper, we investigate the kinetics of the oil exchange process of NEs formed by the PIC method by looking at the exchange of different hydrophobic oils and by employing contrast variation stopped flow small-angle neutron scattering. These experiments demonstrate that this exchange becomes substantially slower by increasing the chain length of the alkane. This indicates a mechanism where monomer exchange is relevant, which would indicate also that for aging one would expect Ostwald ripening to be the determining factor. Such investigations can be carried out in a unique fashion by means of neutron scattering, and the results have important implications for the optimization of NE formulations.

Kinetics of Photocontrollable Micelles: Light-Induced Self-Assembly and Disassembly of Azobenzene-Based Surfactants Revealed by TR-SAXS

The kinetics of micelles involving photosensitive surfactants is still not well understood. In this work, we unravel the mechanistic pathways involved in the micelle formation and dissolution of photocontrollable micelles. We focus on the fast self-assembly processes of photosensitive cationic azobenzene-containing surfactants (AzoTMA) that display a change in hydrophobicity induced by a reversible cis-trans conformational transition upon exposure to light. By combining both in situ time-resolved small-angle X-ray scattering (SAXS) and light scattering, we characterized the detailed structure and phase behavior of AzoTMA in mixtures of water and dimethylformamide (DMF). Time-resolved synchrotron SAXS with monochromatic light as a trigger enabled us to observe the nonequilibrium formation and dissolution process of micelles (demicellization) directly on the nanoscale with a time resolution starting from milliseconds. The structural results show that in pure water UV-light illumination leads to a 12% reduction of the aggregation number of the micelles and more than a 50% increase in the critical micelle concentration (CMC). Close to the CMC, adjusted by the addition of DMF, UV light illumination leads to a complete dissolution of the micelles, while shining blue light reverses the process and leads to the reformation of micelles. The UV-triggered dissolution follows a two-step mechanism; the first and rapid (second time scale) release of unimers is followed by a slower decomposition of the micelles (over tens of seconds) as a result of an increase in temperature due to optical absorption. Similarly, the reverse process, i.e., micelle formation, occurs rapidly upon photoconversion to trans conformers under blue light, and micelles are disrupted at long exposure time due to the optical absorption and corresponding increase in temperature. Interestingly, the coexistence of unimers with regular micelles is found at all times, and no other transient assemblies could be detected by SAXS.

Enhancing the stability of spontaneously self-assembled vesicles - the effect of polymer architecture

The formation of stable vesicles with a controlled size and high stability is an important matter due to their wide application in pharmaceutical and detergency formulations and as drug delivery vehicles. One can control the size of spontaneously formed vesicles in mixtures of zwitterionic and anionic surfactants by the admixture of small amounts of an amphiphilic copolymer of the PEO-PPO-PEO type. Of course, this effect should depend largely on the molecular architecture of the copolymer employed which was varied systematically in this work, and the temporal evolution of aggregate size and final structure was followed by means of DLS and three main effects could be observed. First the size of the formed vesicles is the larger the higher the molecular weight (MW) of the polymer and the higher the polymer concentration. Secondly the amount of copolymer required to induce long time stability is inversely proportional to the fraction of PEO in the polymer. Finally the architecture for a given MW and PEO/PPO ratio has no effect on the vesicle structure but their structure is directly controlled by the length of the PPO block of the copolymer. Thereby by appropriate choice of type and amount of PEO-PPO-PEO copolymer one can exert comprehensive control over size and stability of unilamellar vesicles.

In situsmall-angle X-ray scattering characterization of X-ray-induced local heating

It is shown that small-angle X-ray scattering from binary liquid mixtures close to the critical point of demixing can be used forin situcharacterization of beam-induced heating of liquid samples. For demonstration purposes, the proposed approach is applied on a well studied critical mixture of water and 2,6-lutidine. Given a typical incident X-ray flux at a third-generation synchrotron light source and using a 1.5 mm-diameter glass capillary as sample container, a beam-induced local temperature increase of 0.45 ± 0.10 K is observed.

Kinetic Pathway of the Cylinder-to-Sphere Transition in Block Copolymer Micelles Observed in Situ by Time-Resolved Neutron and Synchrotron Scattering

Here we present an in situ study of the nonequilibrium cylinder-to-sphere morphological transition kinetics on the millisecond range in a model block copolymer micelle system revealing the underlying mechanism and pathways of the process. By employing the stopped-flow mixing technique, the system was rapidly brought (≈100 μs) deep into the instability region, and the kinetics was followed on the time scale of milliseconds using both time-resolved small-angle neutron and X-ray scattering (TR-SANS and TR-SAXS, respectively). Due to the difference in contrast and resolution, SAXS and SANS provide unique complementary information. Our analysis shows that the morphological transition is characterized by a single rate constant indicating a two-state model where the transition proceeds through direct decomposition (fragmentation) of the cylinders without any transient intermediate structures. The cylindrical segments formed in the disintegration process subsequently grow into spherical micelles possibly through the molecular exchange mechanism until near equilibrium micelles are formed. The observation of a two-step kinetic mechanism, fluctuation-induced fragmentation and ″ripening″ processes, provides unique insight into the nonequilibrium behavior of block copolymer micelles in dilute solutions.

SASET: a program for series analysis of small-angle scattering data

This article presents a new program that allows highly automatized analyses of series of, especially, anisotropic two-dimensional neutron and X-ray small-angle scattering data as well as one-dimensional data series. The main aim of this work was to reduce the effort of the analysis of complex scattering systems, which remains an essential burden in the evaluation process of complex systems. The program is built in a modular manner to support a stepwise analysis of small-angle scattering data. For example, from a two-dimensional data series, features such as anisotropy or changes of the preferred scattering direction or intensities along the radial or azimuthal directions as well as along the series axis (e.g. time axis) can quickly be extracted. Different anisotropy measurement methods are available, which are described herein. In a second step, physical scattering models can be fitted to the extracted data. More complex models can be easily added. The fitting procedure can be applied with nearly every possible constraint and works automatically on whole scattering data series. Furthermore, simultaneous fitting can be used to analyze coupled series, and parallel working methods are implemented to speed up the code execution. Finally, results can be easily visualized. The name of the program isSASET, which is an acronym standing for small-angle scattering evaluation tool.SASETis based on MATLAB.