Growing and imaging micelle assembly

The mechanism of micelle growth and assembly has been a subject of much investigations. There are several theories explaining the assembly process of micelle in liquid such as unimer insertion, fusion, fission, complete micelle disassembly and reassembly, or nucleation-elongation. The researchers led by Northwestern University used in-situ liquid cell transmission electron microscopy to monitor the motion and evolution of individual micelles in real time with nanometer spatial resolution. This liquid platform allowed them to observe the diffusion behavior, fusion events and micelle-micelle interaction in solution. This direct observation of micelle interaction in solution opens up a new avenue to test the evolution of soft matter assemblies in unconstrained liquid medium.

Video shows micelle-micelle fusion event in liquid cell TEM.

Reference: Nathan C. Gianneschi et al. Directly Observing Micelle Fusion and Growth in Solution by Liquid-Cell Transmission Electron Microscopy. Journal of the American Chemical Society (2018). Abstract

Movie copyright © 2017 American Chemical Society