Week_7

Name: Satish Mishra

For Credit: _X_Yes __No

QUESTIONS
1. What are the components of a typical ternary micellar system?
Ans. The typical component so of the ternary micellar (oil-water-surfactant)
system are:
1) The 1-phase (micellar phase or the m-phase): It is micellar formation phase. It
contains the water-in-oil or oil-in water system. It is inhomogenous in
nanometer scale but appears homogenous at micron scale. The m-phase regois
is clear through naked eyes but is cloudy for neutrons.
2) The 2-phase: The 2- phase region two phase. One phase contains mostly oil
and another mostly contains water and surfactant.
3) Tie line: It is a line in ternary diagram that shows the phase separation from
m- phase region to the 2-phase region).
4) Plait point: The critical condition for the ternary mixture at a given
temperature is referred to as the plait point that is equivalent to critical
point for binary mixtures. This the peak of the tie line.
2. What is the fish phase diagram?
Ans. The fish phase diagram is obtained when ABC triangle phase diagram is
cut across the (i.e., along the isopleth line) to indicating the concentration of two
components fixed and only one concentration varying. For oil-water-surfactant
system, this cut corresponds to increasing the surfactant concentration but keeping
the amount of water and oil constant. Fish diagram shows the effect of the
temperature (or other physical variable) with third component concentration on
sample microstructure.
3. What is the morphology of crystalline polymers grown in solution?
Ans. Lamellar morphology is observed for crystalline polymers grown in solution.
4. Define the long period in crystalline polymers.
Ans. Long distance is the inter-lamellar distance between stacks of alternating
crystalline and amorphous regions.
5. Could one grow a polymer perfect single crystal using standard methods?
Ans. No, it is not possible to grow perfect single crystals due to the various
folding and structural defects of crystalline polymers. This is why, the lamellar
morphology is not perfect and contains lamellar crumples or ripples.
6. Why do pluronic micelles form?
Ans. The pluronic system consist of a triblock poly(ethylene oxide)(PEO)poly( propylene oxide) (PPO)- poly(ethylene oxide) dissolved in water. The PEO
blocks are mostly hydrophilic while the PPO blocks do not dissolve at hight
temperatures because they are mostly hydrophobic. As a result, when the
temperature is increased the PPO in attempt to minimize the interaction with the
solvent (water) come together to forms micelles.

7. What are some of the standard microstructures that form with ordered block
copolymers?
Ans. The standard microstructures that form with ordered block copolymers are
lamellar, cylindrical or spherical morphologies.
8. Why doesnt the unimer phase (dissolved copolymers) obtained at low
temperature show a SANS correlation hole peak?
Ans. Since the SLD contrast of the PEO and PPO with respect to the solvent
(water) is not much, we dont observe the correlation hole peak in the case of
unimer. Also, there is no ordered phase formed at low temperature as well.
Remember: The SANS peak in the ordered phase is observed because of
characteristic morphologies like lamellar, cylindrical or spherical. The SANS
peak in the disordered phase is due to the correlation hole effect.
9. What is the difference between ionic micelles and nonionic micelles?
Ans. When surfactants contain a charged headgroup and a hydrophobic tail form
Ionic micelles. Examples of ionic surfactants include cetyletrimethylammonium
bromide (CTAB), sodium dodecyl sulfate (SDS), bis(2-ethylhexyl) sodium
sulfosuccinate (AOT) also called diocyl sulfosuccinate, sodium salt, etc.
When a surfactant is not charged forms non-ionic micelles. A class of nonionic
surfactants is denoted CiEj. They are comprised of a hydrophobic alkyl chain
containing i carbons H(CH2)i- and a hydrophilic ethoxy group containing j
alkylpolyglycol ethers (OCH2CH2)jH. One of the example is Pluronic system.
10. Why is the Mean Spherical Approximation not a good model for the structure
factor of a concentrated solution of rods?
Ans. Only the isotropic phase (obtained for a low concentration of rods) can be
modeled by the Mean Spherical Approximation (MSA) approach. Once the
solution is concentrated, the rods becomes to overlap and could form liquid
crystalline phases such as nematic or smectic.