Self-assembly of sugar-based surfactant in the presence of phenol

COLL 292

Shaohua Lu, sl2287@columbia.edu, Department of Earth and Environmental Engineering, Columbia University, Room 911 Mudd Building, 500 West 120th St, New York, NY 10027 and Ponisseril Somasundaran, ps24@columbia.edu, Industry/University Cooperative Research Center for Surfactants, Columbia University, 500 W 120th Street, 910 S.W. Mudd, New York, NY 10027.
Surfactants have been shown to be effective for the removal of harmful phenol reagents from waste water in micellar enhanced ultrafiltration (MEUF). However, interactions between surfactants and phenols responsible for the extraction have not been understood. In this work, a multi-pronged approach using ultrafiltration, analytical ultracentrifuge, Cryo-TEM and 2D NOESY NMR techniques was employed to elucidate relevant interactions between a nonionic surfactant n-dodecyl-β-D-maltoside (DM) and phenol. 2-D NMR spectra has shown that phenol molecules reside in the palisades layer of DM micelles with the benzene ring interacting with the hydrocarbon chain of DM molecules, especially the first methylene group. Worm-like and spherical micelles have been observed in Cryo-TEM graphs for 50mM DM solution with and without 50mM phenol, respectively. Moreover, the coexistence of two different types of micelles was observed using analytical ultracentrifuge for DM/phenol mixtures for certain compositions. The results are interpreted in terms of the molecular packing in surfactant micelles.
 

Surfactant Self-Assembly
6:00 PM-8:00 PM, Monday, August 20, 2007 BCEC -- 153B, Oral

Division of Colloid & Surface Chemistry

The 234th ACS National Meeting, Boston, MA, August 19-23, 2007