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Bolaform surfactants with polyoxometalate head groups and their assembly into ultra-small monolayer membrane vesicles

Surfactants are indispensable in established technologies as detergents or emulsification agents, and also in recent studies for controlling the growth of nanoparticles or for creating nanocarriers. Although the properties of conventional, organic surfactants are thoroughly explored, strong interest...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Landsmann, Steve, Luka, Martin, Polarz, Sebastian
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Nature Pub. Group 2012
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3535418/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23250429
http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/ncomms2321
Descripción
Sumario:Surfactants are indispensable in established technologies as detergents or emulsification agents, and also in recent studies for controlling the growth of nanoparticles or for creating nanocarriers. Although the properties of conventional, organic surfactants are thoroughly explored, strong interest persists in surfactants that possess unique features inaccessible for ordinary systems. Here we present dipolar, bolaform surfactants with a head group comprising of 11 tungsten atoms. These novel compounds are characterized by an exceptionally low critical self-organization concentration, which leads to monolayer vesicles with a diameter of only 15 nm, that is, substantially smaller than for any other system. The membrane of the vesicles is impermeable for water-soluble and oil-soluble guests. Control over release kinetics, which can be followed via the quantitative fluorescence quenching of confined fluorophores, is gained by means of pH adjustments.