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Inhomogeneous Distribution of Cationic Surfactants around Anionic Molecular Clusters
Author(s) -
Gao Yunyi,
Chen Jiahui,
Zhang Tong,
Szymanowski Jennifer E. S.,
Burns Peter C.,
Liu Tianbo
Publication year - 2019
Publication title -
chemistry – a european journal
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.687
H-Index - 242
eISSN - 1521-3765
pISSN - 0947-6539
DOI - 10.1002/chem.201903544
Subject(s) - cationic polymerization , pulmonary surfactant , chemistry , nanoclusters , chemical physics , molecule , hydrophobic effect , dispersion (optics) , supramolecular chemistry , chemical engineering , crystallography , polymer chemistry , organic chemistry , physics , biochemistry , optics , engineering
An interesting phenomenon is reported when uranyl peroxide nanoclusters U 60 (Li 48+ m K 12 (OH) m [UO 2 (O 2 )(OH)] 60 (H 2 O) n , m ≈20 and n ≈310) interact with a small number of cationic surfactant molecules. Cationic surfactant molecules do not distribute evenly around the U 60 clusters during the interaction as expected. Instead, a small fraction of U 60 clusters attract almost all the surfactant molecules, leading to the self‐assembly into supramolecular structures by using surfactant–U 60 complexes as building locks, and later further aggregate and precipitate based on hydrophobic interaction, whereas the rest of the clusters remained unbounded soluble macroions in bulk dispersion. This phenomenon nicely demonstrates a unique feature of macroion solutions. Considering that Debye–Hückel approximation is no longer valid in such solutions, the competition between the local electrostatic interaction and hydrophobic interaction becomes important to regulate the solution behaviors of macroions.