Abstract
Water-in-oil (w/o) microemulsions consist of spherically dispersed water droplets confined inside a continuous oil phase by an interfacial sheath of a surfactant-cosurfactant mixture. Use of the cosurfactant allows one to adjust the hydrophile-lipophile balance such that a variety of surfactants, in particular non-ionics, can be used to prepare w/o microemulsions with ease. Often, when the water content is increased to above 10%, the system changes phase to produce multi-bilayer liquid crystalline lamellae. Hydrodynamic, optical absorption and emission, and magnetic resonance spin relaxation investigations on a typical system, i.e. Triton X-100, hexanol, water, and cyclohexane w/o microemulsions, suggests a similarity of microstructural features with reverse micelles. The initially added water is strongly bound to the surfactant and as the water content is increased, the amount of ‘free’ water increases. Globular proteins and enzymes have been solubilized inside the water pools of these w/o microemulsions with retention of native conformation and enzyme, activity. W/o microemulsions can thus be used as suitable models for studying biopolymer structure and function in restricted environments such as those of biological cellular interiors.
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© 1982 Plenum Press, New York
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Balasubramanian, D., Kumar, C. (1982). Water-in-Oil Microemulsions: Structural Features and Application as Biological Models. In: Mittal, K.L., Fendler, E.J. (eds) Solution Behavior of Surfactants. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4613-3494-1_31
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4613-3494-1_31
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