Polymer-surfactant systems

同时含有聚合物和表面活性剂的水溶液体系显示出广泛的特性，可用于配制各种商业产品，但同样吸引着研究人员。表面活性剂和聚合物在水溶液中的聚集受亲水性、疏水性和离子相互作用的微妙平衡控制。如疏水聚集、粘度增强、凝胶形成、增溶、相分离等过程都可以控制，甚至可以根据特定的应用和要求进行调整。如果考虑如药物递送和转染的应用领域，疏水改性的“天然”聚合物，如衍生自多糖的那些，更有可能获得批准，但由于许多复杂的实验因素，这种系统还没有像基于HM合成聚合物的那些系统那样广泛地研究。在这个项目中，我们合成某些HM多糖，并研究它们与表面活性剂的相互作用，即使在相对较低的表面活性剂和聚合物浓度下观察到的溶液粘度的非常高的增强。目的是了解表面活性剂结合，溶液流变学，中性和带电的疏水分子在高粘度溶液或表面活性剂介导的“动态”凝胶中的增溶变化，以及通过外部因素如pH或溶剂条件对这些性质的控制。

Aqueous systems containing both polymers and surfactants display a wide variety of properties useful in the formulation of a large range of commercial products, but equally fascinating to the researcher. The aggregation of surfactants and polymers in aqueous solution is governed by the subtle balance of hydrophilic, hydrophobic and ionic interactions. Processes such as hydrophobic aggregation, viscosity enhancement, gel formation, solubilization, phase separation, etc. can all be controlled and even tailored to particular applications and requirements.If areas of application such as drug delivery and transvection are considered,  hydrophobically modified "natural" polymers, such as those derived from polysaccharides, are more likely to find approval but due to a number of complex experimental factors such systems have not been studied as widely as those based on HM synthetic polymers. In this project, we synthesize certain HM polysaccharides, and study their interactions with surfactants in relation to the very high enhancements in solution viscosity observed even at relatively low surfactant and polymer concentrations. The objective is to understand the variations in surfactant binding, solution rheology, and the solubilization of neutral and charged hydrophobic molecules in high viscosity solutions or surfactant mediated "dynamic" gels, and the control of these properties by external factors such as pH or solvent conditions.