study on cationic and catanionic vesicles

What is it about?

Cationic and catanionic surfactant vesicle systems have been perturbed by addition of a single-chain surfactant to take the system from a vesicle-stable region to a micelle-stable region. The progress of reaction has been observed by monitoring turbidity changes using a stopped-flow or conventional spectrophotometer. The rate of breakdown of vesicles was found to be linearly dependent on the concentration of added surfactant, which provides the driving force for the breakdown reaction.

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Why is it important?

It has been shown that vesicle breakdown is first order with respect to addition of single-chain surfactant, when the added surfactant takes the system into the micelle stable region The reaction rate increases as the driving force or concentration of surfactant is increased. It has been shown that a rate decrease of a factor of up to 100 can be achieved by driving the vesicles only just outside the vesicle-stable region.