Effects of ionic liquids on self assembled structures of amphiphile

Abstract

Amphiphilic molecules, such as surfactants and phospholipids, self-assemble in aqueous solution to form various mesoscopic structures. These structures can be modified by tuning the electrostatics of the system in the presence of room temperature ionic liquids (RTILs). Understanding the structural evolutions in amphiphilic solutions is important as the structures of the aggregates decide the complex rheological behavior of the system. Further, some of the self-assembled systems such as lipid vesicles and lipid monolayers formed at air-water interface are considered as model systems for biophysical studies of interaction of macromolecules with cellular membrane. In the thesis, commercially available RTILs and newly synthesized lipid analogue molecules have been used to investigate their effects on these self-assembled structures. Advanced synchrotron based x-ray scattering techniques, microscopy and Langmuir-Blodgett monolayer techniques have been employed to understand the structural details and the phase behavior induced by various RTILs. Langmuir monolayers, lipid vesicles, the hierarchical lyotropic liquid crystalline (LLC) systems have been used as model systems. newline