I want to prepare vesicles from fatty acid or lipid through aqueous dispersion. But i am not sure whether it is forming micelles or vesicles. How can i make sure of that? Moreover how can i measure the value of CVC in case vesicles are formed. Is it possible to monitor the micelles to vesicles transition?
Dear Jayanta,
Mostly the transition from micelles to vesicles is measured by light scattering (LS). One could use Dynamic LS as it is fast, or Static LS which is more accurate and more informative but also requires an expensive and not often found setup. I would go for DLS. In DLS one could do this in a titration manner, measuring DLS each time after the concentration is step-wise increased or by making a set of solutions and analyzign them individually. Please note that you need to maintain good temperature, pH and ionic strength control! Some micelle to vesicle transitions are controlled by temperature or solution conditions. I included two links to documents that give some experimental details.
https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/81954825.pdf
Article Kinetics of the Micelle-to-Vesicle Transition: Aqueous Lecit...
I hope this helps! Kind regards, Leo
Thank you Leo Vleugels for the information. Is there any other techniques apart from DLS to do so. Once i opted for microscope to find out its structure to confirm whether micelle or vesicles was formed, but could not get properly. Will turbidity of the system help to distinguish between them.
Turbidity might also work, yes, but it is a lot more work to scientifically show that the increase in turbidity is caused by a micelle-to-vesicle transformation. If your vesicles > 0.5 µm you may also be able to see them by microscopy. A microscopist could probably tell you which kind of microscopic technique is best suited (regular light, dark field, etc.)
When micelles are present your solution most likely is transparent (as they are very small and not scatter a lot of light), the vesicles are (much) larger and therefore they scatter more light and hence induce turbidity.
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