Topology, Length Scales and Energetics of Surfactant Micelles

摘要

We investigate the morphology and energetics of a self-associating modelcationic surfactant in water using coarse-grained molecular dynamicssimulations. We develop an algorithm to track micelles contours and quantifyvarious microstructural features, such as contour length, persistence length,mesh size, and entanglement-length. We demonstrate that branched andmulticonnected structures govern the anomalous dependence of zero-shearviscosity on salt concentration. We predict reliably the end-cap energy ofmicelles, for the first time, from simulations.