Spectroscopic investigations of the water pool in lecithin reverse micelles

The nature of the water pool formed in the reverse micellar system, lecithin/nonpolar solvent/water, has been investigated by means of near infrared, ultraviolet, fluorescence emission and visible spectroscopic techniques. The three nonpolar solvents chosen in this study were benzene, carbon tetrachloride and cyclohexane. Near infrared spectroscopic studies revealed that the amount of water present in the bulk organic phase is negligible at all water concentrations studied in all three solvents. The results of the polarity probe and 8-anilinonaphthalene sulfonic acid (ANSA) fluorescence emission maxima studies indicate that the polarity of the water pool is much lower than that of bulk water. The difference in polarity between the water pool and bulk water decreases with increasing water concentration in benzene and carbon tetrachloride systems. However, in the cyclohexane system, at a water content of 6 moles of water per mole of lecithin, where the system is known to change from isotropic reverse micelle to anisotropic liquid crystalline state, the polarity of the water pool is found to decrease.