When a water-soluble polyelectrolyte is combined with an oppositely-charged surfactant solution at a stoichiometric charge ratio, self-assembly into a highly ordered, water-insoluble complex can occur. These materials exhibit phase structures which are analogous to their pure surfactant components, and significant effort has been made in the past several decades to characterize, predict, and control the various morphologies observed in these systems. However, a truly comprehensive understanding of the phase behavior of these systems is lacking. The purpose of this project is to establish general phase diagrams for self-assembled, stoichiometric poly(acrylate-co-acrylamide)-cetyltrimethylammonium halide (PAAm-CTAX) complexes by studying phase structure as a function of ionic strength, salt type, polyelectrolyte charge density, temperature, and applied osmotic pressure with small-angle X-ray scattering (SAXS). By developing a deeper understanding of the phase behavior and energetics of such a model system, it is hoped that general trends can be extrapolated to other polyelectrolyte-surfactant systems, such as polysaccharide-surfactant systems, which may provide the means to template desired structures in nanoporous, biocompatible matrices. Materials such as these may be attractive targets for drug delivery and nanoscale separation applications.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UMASS/oai:scholarworks.umass.edu:dissertations-4118 |
| Date | 01 January 2005 |
| Creators | Leonard, Michael J |
| Publisher | ScholarWorks@UMass Amherst |
| Source Sets | University of Massachusetts, Amherst |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Source | Doctoral Dissertations Available from Proquest |
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