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Updated: Jul 15, 2026

Facile Preparation of Internally Self-assembled Lipid Particles Stabilized by Carbon Nanotubes
Published on: February 19, 2016
Hexagonal close packing of nonionic surfactant micelles in water
Xiangbing Zeng1, Yongsong Liu, Marianne Impéror-Clerc
1Department of Engineering Materials, University of Sheffield, Sheffield S1 3JD, United Kingdom. x.zeng@sheffield.ac.uk
Abstract:
The knowledge of the exact shapes of micelles in various micellar phases found in both lyotropic and thermotropic liquid crystals is very important to our understanding of the underlying principles of molecular self-assembly. In the current paper we present a detailed structural study of the hexagonal close packed (hcp, space group P63/mmc) micellar phase, observed in the binary mixtures of nonionic surfactant C12EO8 and water. The reconstructed electron density map of the phase shows perfectly spherical micelles. A spherical core/shell model of micelles, which fits the observed X-ray diffraction pattern satisfactorily, is subsequently constructed. The results confirm the previous assumption that the hcp phase consists of spherical close contacting micelles, each of which contains a low-density core of aliphatic parts and a high-density shell of hydrated ethylene oxide segments, with the gaps between the micelles filled by pure water.
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