More evidence on the control of reverse micelles sizes: combination of different techniques as a powerful tool to monitor AOT reversed micelles properties

Abstract

In this work, we have investigated the behavior of 4-aminophthalimide (4-AP) in solvent mixtures of ethyl lactate (EL)− water and EL−n-heptane and in reversed micelles (RMs) media made of EL−water/sodium 1,4-bis(2-ethylhexyl)- sulfosuccinate (AOT)/n-heptane. We have used dynamics light scattering (DLS) and absorption, steady-state and time-resolved emission (TRES) techniques. 4-AP is a very interesting and unique molecule used to study preferential solvation in water mixtures since its emission profile changes dramatically when its sphere shell is solvated by water molecules. Thus, in homogeneous media 4-AP is strongly solvated by water in the EL−water mixture and by EL in the EL−n-heptane mixture, results that show the importance of the hydrogen bonding in the 4-AP solvation. We were motivated by this feature of 4-AP and have used it to monitor properties in AOT RMs. Thus, we use 4-AP spectroscopic behavior in conjunction with DLS technique to reveal the location of each polar solvent of the mixture encapsulated within the RMs media. We found that in the EL−water/ AOT/n-heptane RMs the results strongly depend on the amount of water dissolved. Below W0 = [water]/[AOT] = 5, there are no reversed micelles and EL, water, AOT and n-heptane forms a nonstructured mixture. For W0 values between 5 and 10, the droplet sizes are independent of the EL content because of its strong intermolecular interactions forms an EL polar core and only water is found at the interface. For W0 values higher than 10, the droplets size increase with the EL content and EL molecules are detected at the AOT RMs interface. We inferred that the RMs sizes will change only if the polar solvent encapsulated interacts with the interface changing the surfactant packing parameter. Then, we can assume that it is possible to create RMs with solvents that do not interact with the interface but can be encapsulated in the polar core. These results, give evidence that expand the knowledge about which are the factors that determine when RMs droplet sizes changes with the polar solvent content, giving insights that will help to control the sizes of the AOT RMs. This will open diverse avenues since RMs are interesting nanoreactors for heterogeneous chemistry, templates for nanoparticles and models for electron transfer reaction that happens in membranes.