<p>This thesis deals with the synthesis and characterization ofnovel polyhydroxyl surfactants. The first part describes thesynthesis of a number of stereoisomers of a polyhydroxylsurfactant, and the second part concerns surface chemicalcharacterization.</p><p>A stereodivergent route for preparation of the hydrophilichead group was developed, featuring consecutive stereoselectivedihydroxylations of a diene. This afforded in total fourdifferent polyhydroxyl head groups. These surfactant headgroups were natural and unnatural sugar analogues, and wereused for the coupling with two different hydrophobic tailgroups.</p><p>Three of these surfactants were used to investigate thechiral discrimination in Langmuir monolayers at an air-waterinterface. The isotherms showed a remarkable difference incompressibility between surfactants of diastereomericrelationship and also a pronounced chiral discriminationbetween racemic and enantiomerically pure surfactants favoringheterochiral discrimination.</p>

I den här avhandlingen har vi studerat hur man kan göra nya tensider. En tensid är en speciell molekyl som har förmågan att lösa sig i både vatten och olja. Man kan göra följande experiment hemma: Fyll en glasburk till hälften med vatten och tillsätt en droppe matolja. Oljan bildar en droppe ovanpå vattnet, därför att vatten och olja inte är blandbara. Vatten är polärt och olja är opolärt. Om man rör om med en sked kommer oljedroppen förvisso att dela upp sig i mindre droppar, men så snart man slutar att röra kommer dessa att lägga sig på vattenytan igen. Sätt nu en droppe diskmedel till blandningen och rör om. Nu sprider sig oljedropparna mycket bättre i vattnet, och de lägger sig heller inte på vattenytan lika fort när man slutar att röra. Det här beror på att diskmedel innehåller en tensid, som har en polär och en opolär del. Den polära delen passar ihop med det polära vattnet, medan den opolära delen passar ihop med den opolära oljan. På så vis kan tensiden hjälpa till att lösa upp opolära ämnen i polära vätskor. Den aktiva delen av ett läkemedel består ofta av opolära ämnen, vilka inte löser sig i polära vätskor såsom vatten. Eftersom kroppen består till stor del av vatten måste man ändå försöka få läkemedlet vattenlösligt, för att möjliggöra transport via blodet till problemområdet. Det kan man uppnå genom att tillsätta tensider. Om läkemedel-tensidblandningen ska ges till djur eller människor får inte tensiden orsaka någon skada i kroppen. Vi har försökt framställa tensider som ska kunna användas för att just lösa läkemedel i vatten. För att kunna framställa nya tensider måste man ha kunskap i organisk syntes. Det betyder att man måste veta hur man från små intermediat (”byggstenar”) successivt kan bygga upp nya molekyler som har de önskvärda egenskaperna. Genom olika typer av organisk syntes har vi byggt upp tre nya tensidtyper, vars egenskaper vi studerat med olika mätningar. Ingen av dessa tensider lämpade sig som tillsats till läkemedel, men vårt arbete har givit mycket ny kunskap om hur framtida tensidmolkyler kan tillverkas och vilka egenskaper de får. / This thesis deals with the synthesis and characterization of new polyhydroxy surfactants. The first part describes the synthesis of three new surfactant classes, and the second part concerns the surface chemical characterization of the synthesized surfactants. A stereodivergent route for preparation of hydrophilic head groups was developed, that featured consecutive stereoselective dihydroxylations of a diene. This method provided in total four different polyhydroxylated head groups. These surfactant head groups were natural and unnatural sugar analogues, and were used for the coupling with two different hydrophobic tail groups. Another approach took advantage of a metathesis reaction and provided a polyhydroxylated compound that was coupled to 12-hydroxy stearic acid The third class of surfactants contained an amide linkage between the hydrophilic and the hydrophobic parts. The hydrophilic part consisted of two glucose units, and 12-hydroxy stearic acid was used as the hydrophobic part. The hydroxy moiety in the tail group was further functionalized as aliphatic esters, which provided in total four different surfactants. A selection of the surfactants was used to investigate the chiral discrimination in Langmuir monolayers at an air-water interface. The isotherms showed a remarkable difference in compressibility between diastereomeric surfactants and also a pronounced chiral discrimination between racemic and enantiomerically pure surfactants, favoring heterochiral discrimination. The monolayers were also investigated with Brewster angle microscopy (BAM) and grazing incidence X-ray diffraction (GIXD). It was not possible to observe any chirality dependent features from the BAM images, but the GIXD measurement supported the conclusion that heterochiral discrimination governed the intermolecular forces within the racemic monolayer. The third class of surfactants, containing an amide linkage between the glucose units and 12-hydroxy stearic acid was evaluated with respect to the CMC and the haemolytic activity. These surfactants were all haemolytic close to their respective CMC. / QC 20101015

<p>I den här avhandlingen har vi studerat hur man kan göra nya tensider. En tensid är en speciell molekyl som har förmågan att lösa sig i både vatten och olja.</p><p>Man kan göra följande experiment hemma: Fyll en glasburk till hälften med vatten och tillsätt en droppe matolja. Oljan bildar en droppe ovanpå vattnet, därför att vatten och olja inte är blandbara. Vatten är polärt och olja är opolärt. Om man rör om med en sked kommer oljedroppen förvisso att dela upp sig i mindre droppar, men så snart man slutar att röra kommer dessa att lägga sig på vattenytan igen. Sätt nu en droppe diskmedel till blandningen och rör om. Nu sprider sig oljedropparna mycket bättre i vattnet, och de lägger sig heller inte på vattenytan lika fort när man slutar att röra. Det här beror på att diskmedel innehåller en tensid, som har en polär och en opolär del. Den polära delen passar ihop med det polära vattnet, medan den opolära delen passar ihop med den opolära oljan. På så vis kan tensiden hjälpa till att lösa upp opolära ämnen i polära vätskor.</p><p>Den aktiva delen av ett läkemedel består ofta av opolära ämnen, vilka inte löser sig i polära vätskor såsom vatten. Eftersom kroppen består till stor del av vatten måste man ändå försöka få läkemedlet vattenlösligt, för att möjliggöra transport via blodet till problemområdet. Det kan man uppnå genom att tillsätta tensider. Om läkemedel-tensidblandningen ska ges till djur eller människor får inte tensiden orsaka någon skada i kroppen.</p><p>Vi har försökt framställa tensider som ska kunna användas för att just lösa läkemedel i vatten. För att kunna framställa nya tensider måste man ha kunskap i organisk syntes. Det betyder att man måste veta hur man från små intermediat (”byggstenar”) successivt kan bygga upp nya molekyler som har de önskvärda egenskaperna. Genom olika typer av organisk syntes har vi byggt upp tre nya tensidtyper, vars egenskaper vi studerat med olika mätningar. Ingen av dessa tensider lämpade sig som tillsats till läkemedel, men vårt arbete har givit mycket ny kunskap om hur framtida tensidmolkyler kan tillverkas och vilka egenskaper de får.</p> / <p>This thesis deals with the synthesis and characterization of new polyhydroxy surfactants. The first part describes the synthesis of three new surfactant classes, and the second part concerns the surface chemical characterization of the synthesized surfactants.</p><p>A stereodivergent route for preparation of hydrophilic head groups was developed, that featured consecutive stereoselective dihydroxylations of a diene. This method provided in total four different polyhydroxylated head groups. These surfactant head groups were natural and unnatural sugar analogues, and were used for the coupling with two different hydrophobic tail groups.</p><p>Another approach took advantage of a metathesis reaction and provided a polyhydroxylated compound that was coupled to 12-hydroxy stearic acid</p><p>The third class of surfactants contained an amide linkage between the hydrophilic and the hydrophobic parts. The hydrophilic part consisted of two glucose units, and 12-hydroxy stearic acid was used as the hydrophobic part. The hydroxy moiety in the tail group was further functionalized as aliphatic esters, which provided in total four different surfactants.</p><p>A selection of the surfactants was used to investigate the chiral discrimination in Langmuir monolayers at an air-water interface. The isotherms showed a remarkable difference in compressibility between diastereomeric surfactants and also a pronounced chiral discrimination between racemic and enantiomerically pure surfactants, favoring heterochiral discrimination. The monolayers were also investigated with Brewster angle microscopy (BAM) and grazing incidence X-ray diffraction (GIXD). It was not possible to observe any chirality dependent features from the BAM images, but the GIXD measurement supported the conclusion that heterochiral discrimination governed the intermolecular forces within the racemic monolayer.</p><p>The third class of surfactants, containing an amide linkage between the glucose units and 12-hydroxy stearic acid was evaluated with respect to the CMC and the haemolytic activity. These surfactants were all haemolytic close to their respective CMC.</p>

Surfactant related recovery processes are of increasing interest and importance because of high oil prices and the urge to meet energy demand. High oil prices and the accompanying revival of EOR operations have provided academia and industry with great opportunities to test alkaline surfactant polymer (ASP) methods on a field scale and to develop novel surfactant systems that can improve the performance of such EOR processes. This dissertation intends to discuss both opportunities through two unique projects, the development of novel surfactants for EOR applications and the design for an alkaline/surfactant/polymer (ASP) field pilot. In Section I of this dissertation, a novel series of anionic Gemini surfactants are carefully synthesized and systematically investigated. The remarkable abilities of Gemini surfactants to influence oil-water interfaces and aqueous solution properties are fully demonstrated. These surfactants are shown to have great potential for application in EOR processes. A wide range of Gemini structures (C₁₄ to C₂₄ chain length, -C2- and -C4- spacers, sulfate and carboxylate head groups) was synthesized and shown to have high aqueous solubility, with Krafft points below 20°C. The critical micelle concentrations (CMC) for these new molecules are measured to be orders of magnitude lower than their conventional counterparts. The significantly more negative Gibbs free energy for Gemini surfactant drives the micellization process and results in ultralow CMC. An adsorption study of Gemini surfactants at air-water and solid-water interfaces shows their superior surface activity from tighter molecular packing, and attractive characteristics of low adsorption loss at the solid surface. All anionic Gemini surfactants synthesized have an extraordinary tolerance to salinity and/or hardness. No phase separation or precipitation occurs in the aqueous stability tests, even in the presence of extremely high concentrations of mono- and/or di-valent ions. Moreover, ultra-low IFT values are reached under these conditions for Type I microemulsion systems, at very low surfactant concentrations. The stronger molecular interaction between the Gemini and conventional surfactants offers synergy that promotes aqueous stability and interfacial activity. Gemini molecules with short spacers are capable of giving rise to high viscosities at fairly low concentrations. The rheological behavior can be explained by changes in the micellar structure. A molecular thermodynamic model is developed to study anionic Gemini surfactants aggregation behavior in solution. The model takes into account of the head group-counter-ion binding effect and utilizes two simplified solutions to the Poisson-Boltzmann equation. It properly predicts the CMC of the surfactants synthesized and can be easily expanded to investigate other factors of interest in the micellization process. Section II of this dissertation studies chemical formulation design and implementation for an oilfield where an alkaline/surfactant/polymer (ASP) pilot is being carried out. A four-step systematic design approach, composed of a) process and material selection; b) formulation optimization; c) coreflood validation; 4) lab-scale simulation, was successfully implemented and could be easily transferred to other EOR projects. The optimal chemical formulation recovered over 90% residual oil from Berea coreflood. Lab-scale simulation model accurately history matches the coreflood experiment and sets the foundation for pilot-scale numerical study. Different operating strategies are investigated using a pilot-scale model, as well as the sensitivities of project economics to various design parameters. A field execution plan is proposed based on the results of the simulation study. A surface facility conceptual design is put together based on the practical needs and conditions in the field. Key lessons learned throughout the project are summarized and are invaluable for planning and designing future pilot floods. / text

No description available.

CONTEXTE GENERAL: En raison des activités anthropiques, les sols sont souvent contaminés par des métaux lourds et des hydrocarbures pétroliers. Le nombre important de sites multi-contaminés dans l'environnement met en lumière la nécessité de trouver des solutions adéquates à ces scénarios complexes d'assainissement, qui, de plus, sont rarement étudiés. Parmi les techniques d'assainissement biologique, la phytoremédiation est une technique qui se base sur les propriétés naturelles des plantes pour assainir les sols. L'utilisation conjointe des plantes et des microorganismes pour dépolluer les sols multi-contaminés est une stratégie de traitement en plein essor. Cependant, l'obstacle majeur qui entrave la réussite de tels traitements est la faible biodisponibilité des polluants dans le sol. Par conséquent, la phytoremédiation peut être assistée par des traitements chimiques et/ou biologiques afin de surmonter cette limitation et d'améliorer l'efficacité de l'assainissement. Dans cette étude, l'approche chimique implique l'ajout d'amendements biodégradables. Enfin, la stratégie biologique retenue dans ce travail est la bioaugmentation qui consiste à ajouter dans le sol des bactéries capables d'améliorer l'assainissement des polluants et/ou favoriser la croissance des plantes. PRINCIPAUX OBJECTIFS: a) Étudier le potentiel de la luzerne pour la phytoremédiation des sols multi-contaminés, b) Étudier les effets de l'acide organique de faible poids moléculaire acide citrique et le tensioactif Tween® 80 sur le processus de phytoremédiation et c) Étudier l'effet de la bioaugmentation avec la bactérie Pseudomonas aeruginosa sur le processus de phytoremédiation. METHODES: Détermination des taux de germination et de mortalité, évaluation des paramètres physiologiques des plantes. Quantification de la biomasse végétale, des métaux lourds dans les plantes, hydrocarbures pétroliers totaux (HCT) dans le sol, et indicateurs microbiologiques du sol. Calcul des paramètres de phytoremediation.RESULTATS REMARQUABLES: La luzerne a présenté une faible tolérance aux HCT du sol à 8400 mg kg-1 de matière sèche (MS). Celle-ci qui a été améliorée lorsque les HCT étaient présents à plus faible concentration (3600 mg kg-1 MS). La luzerne a été en mesure de prendre les métaux dans une proportion limitée (<100 mg kg-1 MS), tandis qu'elle a eu un effet positif sur le nombre de microorganismes du sol capables de dégrader les alcanes et sur l'activité de la lipase dans la rhizosphère. En outre, l'application combinée de l'acide citrique et du Tween® 80 a donné lieu à une amélioration plus importante de nombre et de l'activité microbienne dans la rhizosphère. La bioaugmentation avec P. aeruginosa a eu un effet sur l'amélioration de la biomasse de luzerne (augmentation de la biomasse végétale sèche totale de 71%). En outre, les taux les plus élevés d'élimination des HCT (68%, après 90 jours d'expérience) ont été obtenues dans les sols plantés avec la luzerne et bioaugmentées par P. aeruginosa. CONCLUSION GENERALE: La luzerne pourrait tolérer le sol co-contaminé par des métaux lourds et des hydrocarbures pétroliers, ce qui est une caractéristique essentielle en phytoremédiation. La luzerne ne peut cependant pas être considérée comme une espèce capable d'extraire activement les métaux lourds, même en présence d'amendements chimiques ou par bioaugmentation. Néanmoins, l'augmentation du nombre et de l'activité microbienne dans la rhizosphère a confirmé le potentiel de cette plante à être utilisée avec succès dans le traitement des hydrocarbures pétroliers. Ces effets ont été par ailleurs renforcés par l'application conjointe d'acide citrique et de Tween® 80. Enfin, la combinaison de la phytoremédiation et de la bioaugmentation semble une approche prometteuse pour réaliser l'assainissement des hydrocarbures pétroliers, lorsqu'ils sont présents dans des sols multi-contaminés / GENERAL BACKGROUND : As a result of anthropogenic activities, soil resources remain contaminated with heavy metals and petroleum hydrocarbons. The high frequency of occurrence of multi-contaminated soils in the environment brings to light the necessity to find remediation solutions adequate in such complex scenarios, which besides have seldom been studied. Phytoremediation is a biologically based remediation technology, which takes advantage of the intrinsic physiological abilities of plants to remediate contaminated media. Plants and their associated microorganisms perform phytoremediation processes (e.g. phytoextraction and rhizodegradation), which can bring about the clean-up of multi-contaminated soils. However, a major constraint which hinders the success of phytotechnologies is low bioavailability of pollutants in soil. As a result, chemically- and biologically-assisted phytoremediation are possible strategies used to overcome this limitation and improve the remediation efficiency. The chemical approach presented in this study involves the addition of biodegradable soil amendments to increase the ability of contaminants to be transferred from a soil compartment to plants and microorganisms. The biological strategy explored herein consists of inoculating contaminated soils with bacteria (bioaugmentation) able to improve remediation of pollutants and/or promote plant features.MAIN OBJECTIVES: a) To investigate the phytoremediation potential of alfalfa (Medicago sativa) in multi-contaminated soils b) To study the effects of the low molecular weight organic acid citric acid and the surfactant Tween® 80 on the phytoremediation process c) To assist phytoremediation with a bioaugmentation approach using Pseudomonas aeruginosa bacteria. METHODOLOGIES: Determination of germination and mortality rates, assessment of plant physiological parameters. Quantification of plant biomass, heavy metals in plants, total petroleum hydrocarbons (TPH) in soil, soil microbiological indicators. Calculation of phytoremediation parameters. REMARKABLE RESULTS : Alfalfa presented low tolerance to TPH contaminated soil at 8400 mg kg-1 soil, which was improved when TPH were present at lower concentration (3600 mg kg-1 soil). Alfalfa was able to take up metals to a limited extent (<100 mg kg-1 dry matter), while had a positive effect in promoting microbial number of alkane degraders and lipase activity in the rhizosphere. Moreover, the combined application of citric acid and Tween® 80 resulted in a greater improvement of these parameters. Bioaugmentation with P. aeruginosa had a promoting effect on alfalfa biomass (71% increase of plant total dry biomass). In addition, the highest TPH removal rates (68%, after 90 days of experiment) were obtained in soils vegetated with alfalfa and bioaugmented with P. aeruginosa.OVERALL CONCLUSION: Alfalfa could tolerate a heavy metal and petroleum hydrocarbon co-contaminated soil (subject to TPH levels), which is an essential characteristic for any plant species to be used in phytoremediation. Alfalfa could not be considered as an actively heavy metal removal species as it was not able to phytoextract significant amounts of heavy metals (still in the presence of soil amendments or bioaugmentation). Nevertheless, the enhancement of microbial number and activity in the rhizosphere encouraged the potential of this plant species to be successfully used in the remediation of petroleum hydrocarbons. These effects were additionally enhanced by the joint application of soil amendments. Finally, the combination of phytoremediation and bioaugmentation seems a promising approach to achieve the remediation of petroleum hydrocarbons, when present in multi-contaminated soils

Surfactants are surface-active agents decreasing surface tension to simplify removing dirt. Surfactants can be divided into four basic classes: anionic, cationic, non-ionic and amfolytic. In Czech Republic there are mostly used anionic surfactants nowadays which get into waste water through detergents. The thesis deals with the spectrophotometric determination of anionic surfactants and the study of interferences to this method.

This thesis deals with the synthesis and characterization ofnovel polyhydroxyl surfactants. The first part describes thesynthesis of a number of stereoisomers of a polyhydroxylsurfactant, and the second part concerns surface chemicalcharacterization. A stereodivergent route for preparation of the hydrophilichead group was developed, featuring consecutive stereoselectivedihydroxylations of a diene. This afforded in total fourdifferent polyhydroxyl head groups. These surfactant headgroups were natural and unnatural sugar analogues, and wereused for the coupling with two different hydrophobic tailgroups. Three of these surfactants were used to investigate thechiral discrimination in Langmuir monolayers at an air-waterinterface. The isotherms showed a remarkable difference incompressibility between surfactants of diastereomericrelationship and also a pronounced chiral discriminationbetween racemic and enantiomerically pure surfactants favoringheterochiral discrimination. / <p>NR 20140805</p>

No description available.

This thesis contains investigations in two different areas, described under six chapters. Chapter 1 contains a broad introduction to the area of foldamers, while Chapters 2, 3, 4, and 5 deal with various novel classes of synthetic polymers which can form folded structures in solution utilizing different non-covalent interactions. Chapter 6 deals with a distinctly different topic, where the objective was to study the effect of phenyl ring location on the micellization properties of a series of isomeric cationic surfactants. Synthetic polymers typically adopt a random coil conformation in solution, which is primarily an entropy driven process. So the generation of well-defined secondary structures in synthetic polymers requires specific intra-chain inter-segment interactions that will give adequate enthalpic contribution to overcome the entropic penalty associated with the formation of well-ordered conformations. During the past decade, various research groups have made significant effort to understand the essential design elements that could enable secondary structure formation in synthetic macromolecules through intra-chain inter-segment interactions, such as hydrogen bonding, solvophobic and solvophilic interaction, acid-base interaction, bond angle constraint, steric interaction, charge-transfer interaction, metal-ion complexation etc.1 Gellman2 first used the term “foldamer” to describe “any polymer with a strong tendency to adopt a specific compact conformation” which was more precisely defined by Moore and coworkers3 as “any oligomer that folds into a conformationally ordered state in solution, the structures of which are stabilized by a collection of non-covalent interactions between nonadjacent monomer units” and where the folded conformation is one of the various possible conformations. Several classes of foldamers have been studied during the past decade; a majority of them are well-defined oligomers that possess relatively restricted conformational degrees of freedom. Relatively fewer studies have explored conformational control in flexible high molecular weight polymers that possess greater conformational freedom.4 A few years ago, Ghosh et al. designed a polymeric system wherein charge-transfer interactions between alternatively placed electron-rich and electron-deficient aromatic units, aided by metal-ion complexation and solvophobic interactions, causes the polymer chain to adopt a specific folded conformation.5 Such charge-transfer induced folding was first studied by Iverson and co-workers6 in well-defined oligomers and was later elaborated by Zhao et al.7 to generate alternate designs to fold oligomeric systems. In all these studies, the C-T interactions served not only to assist the folding process but it also served as a valuable spectroscopic signature to study the folding process. The objectives of the present study are to develop simple synthetic strategies to generate different types of polymers that could be fold in solution using various noncovalent interactions. We have developed a simple synthetic strategy to design a new type of donor (1,5-dialkoxynaphthalene-DAN) containing polymer that carries a tertiary amine unit in the spacer segment, which could interact strongly with a suitably designed acceptor (pyromellitic diimide-PDI) bearing folding agent that carries a carboxylic acid group, as shown in Scheme 1.8 This acid-base interaction, brings the acceptor unit in a suitable position so as to form a C-T complex with the adjacent donors, resulting in the folding of the polymer chain. The folded conformation was studied using UV-vis and NMR spectroscopy and the folding propensities were rationalized using DFT studies. The highest association constant between the folding agent and the polymer was estimated to be around 1200 M-1. Scheme 1. Schematic representation of folding aided by two-point interactions with a folding agent. This value of association constant was not adequate to realize some potentially interesting properties in solid state. In an attempt to develop alternate systems, that could exhibit stronger propensity to fold, we designed a new type of cationic ionene,9 wherein electron-rich (DAN) and electron-deficient (PDI) aromatic units were included within the alkylene segments in an alternating fashion, as shown in Scheme 2.10 The charge-transfer (C-T) interaction between the donor and acceptor units in neighbouring segments of the ionene not only reinforced the transition to the collapsed nano-bundle form but also provides a useful spectroscopic handle to monitor the conformational change. The UV-visible spectra of these novel D-A ionene solutions at a fixed concentration in four different solvents, namely water, methanol, acetonitrile and DMSO, show different extents of charge-transfer interaction. The colour of the solution in water was deep-red, whereas in acetonitrile, it was light-yellow. The conformational transition could also be induced by titrating an acetonitrile solution of the ionene with increasing amounts of water causing a dramatic increase in the intensity of the charge-transfer band, which reflects the extent of collapse to the zig-zag state that brings the donor and acceptor units together. AFM studies confirmed the presence of flat pancake-like aggregates having nearly constant height of about 3-5 nm, which was in accordance with the estimated thickness of the postulated zig-zag structure. Scheme 2. Schematic depiction of folding of D-A ionene (left), AFM micrograph showing pancake-like aggregates of D-A ionenes (right-top), a line scan depicting the heights and diameters of the aggregates along with a schematic depiction of the aggregate (right-bottom). Scheme 3. Schematic representation of folding aided by interactions with a folding agent. In order to explore this concept further, we designed a two component system wherein the solvophobically-driven collapse of a DAN-containing ionene chain in a polar solvent is reinforced by intercalation with a suitably designed electron-deficient acceptor-containing external folding agent. DAN containing ionene polymer chains in polar solvent form an accordion-type zig-zag structure that brings adjacent donor units in close proximity; this provided an ideal hydrophobic pocket for intercalation of suitably designed electron-deficient acceptor molecules, the additional driving motivation for the intercalation being the formation of a C-T complex as shown in Scheme 3.11 Several acceptor-bearing molecules were prepared by the derivatization of pyromellitic dianhydride and naphthalene tetracarboxylic dianhydride with two different oligoethylene glycol monomethyl ether monoamines. UV-vis spectroscopic studies were carried out by using a 1:1 mixture of the DAN-ionenes and different acceptor molecules in water/DMSO solvent mixtures. The intensity of the charge-transfer (C-T) band was seen to increase with the water content in the solvent mixture, thereby suggesting that the intercalation is indeed aided by solvophobic effects. The naphthalene diimide (NDI) bearing acceptor molecules consistently formed significantly stronger C-T complexes when compared to the pyromellitic diimide (PDI) bearing acceptor molecules, which is a reflection of the stronger π-stacking tendency of the former. The highest association constant between the folding agent and the polymer was estimated to be around 4519 M-1, which was a substantial improvement over the earlier reported values.9 With a slight modification in the pendant group, we designed a water-soluble DAN-containing ionene, which can intercalate hydrophobic electron-deficient molecules, like TNT (2,4,6-trinitrotoluene), within the hydrophobic interstices between DAN units (as shown in Scheme 4), causing a depletion in fluorescence from the DAN units; TNT at concentration as low as 30 nM could be detected in this manner. Scheme 4. Schematic representation of folding of water soluble ionene and interactions with an electron-deficient hydrophobic moiety TNT. Scheme 5. Schematic representation of folded D-A allyl ionene. In light of the growing interest in single-chain polymeric nanoparticles, the fully collapsed D-A ionenes in water could be viewed as polymeric nanoparticles that are stitched together by reversible weak noncovalent interactions. In an attempt to transform the folded structure into a polymeric nanoparticle using covalent bonding, we designed D-A ionene that carries potentially polymerizable allyl units on the cationic head group instead of the dimethyl amine head group that was used in previous examples (as shown in Scheme 5). Preliminary studies showed that polymerization does not proceed readily; however, thiol-ene based clicking strategy enabled partial stitching of the folded segments, by the use of a suitably designed dithiol. In the last section of this thesis, we examined the effect of phenyl ring location on the micellization properties of a series of isomeric cationic surfactants, wherein the phenyl ring location was varied from head to tail region (as shown in Scheme 6).12 Thus, cationic surfactants (S1-S5) bearing a long alkyl chain that carries a 1,4phenylene unit and a trimethyl ammonium headgroup was synthesized and their solution properties were examined. Micellization behavior was studied using conductivity, ITC (Isothermal Titration Calorimetry), SANS (Small-Angle Neutron Scattering) and NMR. These present studies demonstrated that the presence of a large rigid ring near the hydrocarbon tail-end of the surfactant leads to a dramatic change in the micelle structure; the driving motivation to form micelles in such systems is greatly reduced and the micelles that are formed are relatively smaller and contain significantly fewer surfactants. NMR studies of micellar solutions of these surfactants indicate that the variation in the phenyl ring location may also help to probe the microenvironment at various depths within the micellar aggregates. Scheme 6. Structures of the various surfactant molecules carrying the 1,4-dioxyphenylene unit at different locations within hydrophobic segment (left), variation of CMC values (right). References (1) Foldamers - structure, properties, and applications, edited by Stefan Hecht and Ivan Huc, Wiley-VCH, 2007. (2) Gellman, S. H. Acc. Chem. Res. 1998, 31, 173. (3) Hill, D. J.; Mio, M. J.; Prince, R. B.; Huges, T. S.; Moore, J. S. Chem. Rev. 2001, 101, 3893. (4) (a) Wang, W.; Li, L. S.; Helms, G.; Zhou, H. H.; Li, A. D. Q. J. Am. Chem. Soc. 2003, 125, 1120. (b) Li, A. D. Q.; Wang, W.; Wang, L. Q. Chem. Eur. J. 2003, 9, 4594. (c) Neuteboom, E. E.; Meskers, S. C. J.; Meijer, E. W.; Janssen, R. A. J. Macromol. Chem. Phys. 2004, 205, 217. (d) Balbo Block, M. A.; Hecht, S. Macromolecules 2004, 37, 4761. (5) (a) Ghosh, S.; Ramakrishnan, S. Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 2004, 43, 3264. (b) Ghosh, S.; Ramakrishnan, S. Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 2005, 44, 5441. (6) Lokey, R. S.; Iverson, B. L. Nature 1995, 375, 303. (7) Zhao, X.; Jia, M. X. Jiang, X. K.; Wu, L. Z.; Li, Z. T.; Chen. G. J. J. Org. Chem. 2004, 69, 270. (8) De, S.; Koley, D.; Ramakrishnan, S. Macromolecules 2010, 43, 3183. (9) Williams, S. R.; Long, T. E. Prog. Polym. Sci. 2009, 34, 762. (10) De, S.; Ramakrishnan, S. Macromolecules 2009, 42, 8599. (11) De, S.; Ramakrishnan, S. Chem. Asian J. 2011, 6, 149. (12) De, S.; Aswal, V. K.; Ramakrishnan, S. Langmuir 2010, 26, 17882. (For structural formula pl see the abstract file.