Self-Aggregation of Amphiphilic Dendrimer in Aqueous Solution: The Effect of Headgroup and Hydrocarbon Chain Length

The self-aggregation of amphiphilic dendrimers G1QPAMCm based on poly(amidoamine) PAMAM possessing the same hydrophilic group but differing in alkyl chain length in aqueous solution was investigated. Differences in the chemical structures lead to significant specificities in the aggregate building process. A variety of physicochemical parameters presented monotonous regularity with the increase in alkyl chain length in multibranched structure, as traditional amphiphilic molecules. A significant difference, however, existed in the morphology and the microenvironment of the microdomain of the aggregates, with G1QPAMCm with an alkyl chain length of 16 intending to form vesicles. To obtain supporting information about the aggregation mechanism, the thermodynamic parameters of micellization, the free Gibbs energy ΔGmic, and the entropy ΔSmic were derived subsequently, of which the relationship between the hydrophobic chain length and the thermodynamic properties indicated that the self-assembly process was jointly driven by enthalpy and entropy. Other than traditional surfactants, the contribution of enthalpy has not increased identically to the increase in hydrophobic interactions, which depends on the ratio of the alkyl chain length to the radius in the headgroup. Continuous increases in the hydrophobic chain length from 12 to 16 lead to the intracohesion of the alkyl chain involved in the process of self-assembly, weakening the hydrophobic interactions, and the increase in -ΔHmic, which offers an explanation of the formation of vesicular structures.