Summary: | Surfactants are surface-active agents which belong to the category of
amphiphilic molecules. Indeed, surfactants are characterized for the presence of polar and
apolar domains in the same compound. They can form different types of aggregates, such
as those known as micelles, being that the concentration at which they form these micelles
is called critical micellar concentration (cmc). The different aggregation states of the
surfactant (monomer, pre-micellar aggregate, micelle, and liposomes) can present different
properties in terms of capability of chemical interaction. The presence of these different
configurations and/or the variation of concentration of each one alters the physicochemical
properties of the chemical systems with ionic and non-ionic surfactants. The micro
heterogenous systems originated by these surfactants have been widely studied in literature to
infer several aspects related to similar media that are encountered in the biological tissues.
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