Related papers: Solvent-induced micelle formation in a hydrophobic…
Hypotheses: A quantitative molecular-thermodynamic theory of the growth of giant wormlike micelles of nonionic surfactants can be developed on the basis of a generalized model, which includes the classical 'phase separation' and 'mass…
Charged colloidal particles trapped at an air--water interface are well known to form an ordered crystal, stabilized by a long ranged repulsion, the details of this repulsion remain something of a mystery, but all experiments performed to…
Understanding water-metal interactions is central to disciplines spanning catalysis, electrochemistry, and atmospheric science. Monolayer ice phases are well established on hydrophilic surfaces, where strong water-substrate interactions…
Superhydrophobic surfaces play an important role in the development of new product coatings such as cars, but also in mechanical engineering, especially design of turbines and compressors. Thus a vital part of the design of these surfaces…
In our recent works, based on the structural studies on water and interfacial water (topmost water layer at the solute/water interface), hydration free energy is derived and utilized to investigate the physical origin of hydrophobic…
A core-softened model of a glass forming fluid is numerically studied in the limit of very low temperatures. The model shows two qualitatively different behaviors depending on the strength of the attraction between particles. For no or low…
We propose a mean-field model to explore the equilibrium coupling between micelle aggregation and lattice choice in neutral copolymer and selective solvent mixtures. We find both thermotropic and lyotropic transitions from face-centered…
The speculated presence of monomolecular lamellae of antagonistic salts in oil-water mixtures has left several open questions besides their hypothetical existence, including their microscopic structure and stabilization mechanism. Here, we…
Clean oxide surfaces are generally hydrophilic. Water molecules anchor at undercoordinated surface metal atoms that act as Lewis-acid sites, and they are stabilized by H bonds to undercoordinated surface oxygens. The large unit cell of…
We address the problem of inverse polymer swelling. This phenomenon, in which a collapsed polymer chain swells upon decreasing temperature, can be observed experimentally in so-called thermoreversible homopolymers in aqueous solution, and…
A model for the limiting surface tension of surfactant solutions (surface tension at and above the critical micelle concentration, cmc) was developed. This model takes advantage of the equilibrium between the surfactant molecules on the…
In the present study, we report our findings on various asphaltenes-water interactions at a high reservoir condition (550 K and 200 bar) and the role of water in asphaltene association during the waterflooding process. Molecular dynamics…
The self-assembly of amphiphilic molecules usually takes place in a liquid phase, near room temperature. Here, using small angle X-ray scattering (SAXS) experiments performed in real time, we show that freezing of aqueous solutions of…
Thermodynamics tells us to expect underwater contact between two hydrophobic surfaces to result in stronger adhesion compared to two hydrophilic surfaces. However, presence of water changes not only energetics, but also the dynamic process…
We present a new theoretical approach to the kinetics of micelle formation in surfactant solutions, in which the various stages of aggregation are treated as constrained paths on a single free-energy landscape. Three stages of…
The phase behavior of colloidal particles embedded in a binary fluid is influenced by wetting layers surrounding each particle. The free energy of the fluid film depends on its morphology, i.e., on size, shape and connectivity. Under rather…
Flow-induced configuration dynamics and scission of rodlike micelles are studied for the first time using molecular dynamics simulations in presence of explicit solvent and salt. Predicted dependence of tumbling frequency and orientation…
Most motile bacteria swim in viscous fluids by rotating multiple helical flagellar filaments. These semi-rigid filaments repeatedly join ('bundle') and separate ('unbundle'), resulting in a two-gait random walk-like motion of the cell. In…
Our atomistic molecular dynamics simulations reveal the existence of bound and free water molecules in the hydration layer of an aqueous micelle. The bound water molecules can be either singly or doubly hydrogen bonded to the polar head…
Using an activation mechanism reproducing facilitation, a dynamic phase transition triggered by a few active molecules was recently found in a supercooled model liquid. Prompted by this finding we investigate the presence of a similar…