화학공학소재연구정보센터
Journal of Physical Chemistry B, Vol.101, No.39, 7744-7750, 1997
Equilibrium Size Distributions of Circular Domains in Amphiphilic Monolayers
An expression is derived for the free energy of a surfactant monolayer at the interface between two immiscible bulk phases for a range of surface pressures in which two surface phases coexist. The condensed phase is assumed to be present in dispersed form, viz., as circular domains embedded in the less dense phase. The domains are kept in fixed positions as a result of electrostatic trapping. A thermodynamic analysis is presented on the basis of the free energy expression for the case of a single amphiphilic component using a mass-action equilibrium condition, which yields the equilibrium distribution of domain sizes. The distribution function is shown to be the result of a competition between a collective entropy effect (which favors dispersion), line tension, electrostatic edge effects, and interdomain repulsion, while a possible contribution due to bending elasticity of the phase boundary is taken into account. A numerical example illustrates that for practical systems the distributions are fairly narrow and that both the domain size and the width of the distribution increases with the fractional surface coverage of the condensed phase, but in such a way that the degree of polydispersity decreases.