h i g h l i g h t s• On increasing DDAB concentration, the following phase sequence appears: monomer, vesicle, lamellae.• DDAB unilamellar vesicles are formed in water only in a very narrow concentration range.• DDAB multilamellar vesicles co-exist with unilamellar vesicles in this concentration range.• Phase separation occurs in DDAB/water, with lamellae on top and vesicles on bottom.• The reverse melting temperature of DDAB/water is around 9.5 • C. g r a p h i c a l a b s t r a c t a b s t r a c t This work aims to delineate the single isotropic vesicle phase (Ves) in the binary didodecyldimethylammonium bromide (DDAB)/water system, limited by the critical vesicle concentrations, CVC 1 ≈ 0.05 mM (2.3 × 10 −3 wt%) and CVC 2 ≈ 0.7 mM (3.1 × 10 −2 wt%), as the onset of unilamellar vesicle formation and of two-phase separation into Ves + Lam (lamellar) phases, respectively. Isothermal titration calorimetry (ITC), turbidity, and crossed polaroids observations indicate that below CVC 1 the dispersion is dominated by free monomers or micelles, but rich in uni-and multilamellar vesicles between CVC 1 and CVC 2 , with CVC 2 = 0.21 mM (9.5 × 10 −3 wt%) being the onset of multilamellar vesicle formation. Above CVC 2 , the volume of the Lam phase increases, while the volume for the Ves phase decreases to vanish around CVC 3 ≈ 21 mM (0.95 wt%). Differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) data show that the gel-to-liquid crystalline transition at T m ≈ 16 • C is highly cooperative ( T 1/2 ≈ 0.3 • C), and the melting enthalpy ( H m ) increases with DDAB concentration. Because of the remarkably slow liquid crystalline-to-gel kinetics, a cooling transition around T m ≈ 9.5 • C is reported here for the first time, we ascribe to the liquid crystalline-to-gel transition (thermal hysteresis T m ≈ 6.5 • C). Vesicle and lamellar structure formation E. Feitosa et al. / Colloids and Surfaces A: Physicochem. Eng. Aspects 480 (2015) 253-259 is supported also by hydrodynamic diameter (D H ) data, being 100-140 and 800-1200 nm, respectively, at 25 • C. The zeta potential ( ) increases with DDAB concentration but does not change much with temperature, indicating no pronounced structural change when temperature varies around T m .