Surfactant Mixtures: Performances vs. Aggregation States

Abstract

The focus of this chapter is on bio-intended procedures based on mixing surfactants with polymers and biopolymers, or surfactants among them (provided they are oppositely charged). In the first case, polymer-surfactant and protein-surfactant systems are dealt with. Both are characterized by the splitting of the solution phase into, at least, three regions having peculiar properties. At first, surfactant nucleation onto polymers takes place; this implies large modifications in properties with respect to the starting materials. The formation of gels is possible in some instances. As to mixtures of oppositely charged surfactants, it is indicated how they form cat-anionic vesicles if mixed in nonstoichiometric amounts. Vesicle sizes are modulated by the charge ratio. These systems are excellent vectors for biomedical purposes.

Natural Products from Madagascar, Socio-Cultural Usage, and Potential Applications in Advanced Biomedicine: A Concise Review

“…However, vesicles may show a cytotoxic effect, which is directly related to time of exposure and dose of administration, as well as to the nature of the composing cat-anionic moieties which to some extent may determine the more or less pronounced cytotoxicity of the particle. In any case, cytotoxicity evaluations and biological viability has been evaluated from our and other authors: in particular, results from our laboratories show that the transfected cat-anionic/RNA lipoplex is efficiently translated into protein [ 34 , 35 , 36 , 37 , 38 , 39 , 40 , 41 , 42 ]. For a chemico-physical characterization of cat-anionic vesicles, see Figure 10 and reference [ 43 ].…”

Surface Activity and Efficiency of Cat-Anionic Surfactant Mixtures

“…The molecular schizophrenia of ionic surfactants drastically increases when they are mixed with an oppositely charged analog. Surface areas are slightly modulated by the co-presence of the two species, but the bulk association is largely modified with respect to the corresponding binary systems ( Jónsson et al, 1991 ; Wang et al, 2007 ; La Mesa and Ranieri, 2019 ; Peyre, 2009 ; Long and Hao, 2012 ). A drastic decrease of cmc values, measuring some orders of magnitude, is observed, as shown by Figure 4 .…”