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Updated: Feb 19, 2026

Self-Assembly of Hybrid Lipid Membranes Doped with Hydrophobic Organic Molecules at the Water/Air Interface
Published on: May 1, 2020
How Equilibrium Gets Mimicked During Kinetic and Thermodynamic Control in Porphyrin and Phthalocyanine Self-Assembled
1International Centre for Quantum and Molecular Structures and School of Physics, Shanghai University , Shanghai 200444, China.
Abstract:
The recent review of Hipps and Mazur is extended to consider the origins and significance of their conclusion that "surface structures vary with relative component concentration in a way that may mimic equilibria but is not". How this situation can arise during self-assembly is discussed, as well as a range of qualitative and quantitative observations and high-level free-energy calculations that document the effect for meso-tetraalkylporphyrins self-assembled monolayer (SAM) polymorphs. This leads to a discussion of modern challenges facing quantification of the effects caused by kinetic control, as well as to the usefulness of equilibrium mimicking in the design and synthesis of SAMs.
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For gas-phase reactions, the equilibrium constant may be expressed in terms of either the molar concentrations (Kc) or partial pressures (Kp) of the reactants and products. A relation between these two K values may be simply derived from the ideal gas equation and the definition of molarity. According to the ideal gas equation:
The Equilibrium Constant

