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Do hydrotropes stabilize, or destabilize, micelles?
The aim is to investigate and understand interactions of hydrotropes (primitive amphiphiles) with a new range of industrially important non-ionic surfactants, alkyl-capped... -
Co-surfactancy of oil-soluble and water-soluble surfactants in emulsion stabi...
The structures of emulsions formed from mixed oil-soluble and water-soluble amphiphiles (respectively derivatives of polyisobutylene, PIBSA, and polyacrylamide, PAM) will be... -
Mercury sulphide dimorphism in liquids and glasses
A waste majority of crystals exists in several polymorphic forms in different domains of the P,T-diagram. Liquids and glasses also exhibit polyamorphism and the question remains... -
SESANS of beetle scales and butterfly wings
Neutron scattering and in particular SESANS is able to give us excellent ensemble averaging of the optical properties of materials which exhibit structural colour. We plan to... -
Investigating dental resin polymer structures of as a function of light-curin...
Dimethacrylate resins are currently used for dental fillings. The polymers are set by free radical polymerisation. At present light curing protocols require 40s exposure at... -
Worm-like reversed micelles with a CO2-philic surfactant
Hydrotropes (Figure 3 A-C) are known viscosifying agents with surfactants in organic solvents1 and interestingly now in supercritical CO2 (scCO2)5. The mechanism is... -
Salt Effects on Self-assembly of Polyoxometallate Surfactants in Aqueous Solu...
This proposal continues our work on polyoxometallates (POM)-headed surfactants. POMs are well defined transition metal clusters with a range of interesting catalytic, magnetic... -
Magnetic study of the new skyrmion-carrying material CoZnMn
Nanoscale magnetic skyrmions are swirl-like magnetisation entities that satisfy topological quantisation conditions. They can therefore not be easily unwound into another... -
Aggregation in ionic liquids
The aim of this experiment is to investigate surfactant aggregation in ionic liquids and also ionic liquid ¿ oil and ionic liquid ¿ water microemulsions via SANS. Contrast... -
Conformation of thermo-responsive methacrylate based comb polymers in D2O sol...
A series of well defined comb polymers consisting of methacrylate backbones and oligo(2-ethyl-2-oxazoline) side chains was shown to exhibit lower critical solution temperature... -
Nanoemulsions for dermatological drug delivery
Nanoemulsions have considerable potential for dermatological drug delivery. Small angle neutron scattering in combination with contrast variation will be used to characterize... -
Temperature-dependent structural behaviour of the collapse transition of high...
We shall use small angle neutron scattering to investigate the structural behaviour of the temperature sensitive highly branched poly(N-isopropyl acrylamide) [PNIPAM]. These... -
SANS studies of mixed phsopholipid:sterol vesicles and their interaction with...
The increasing incidence of pathogenic fungi resistant to treatment with amphotericin B (AmB) has created a demand for novel anti-fungal agents that can circumvent the... -
Peptide resistance in asymmetric MRSA-mimetic vesicles
We have been investigating the influcence of the cationic staphylococcal lipid lysyl-phosphatidylglycerol (L-PG) on bacterial resistance to antimicrobial peptides (AMPs). Using... -
Structural development in Whey protein polymer composite solutions for electr...
This is part of an on-going investigation into nano/micro scale sized polymer fibres at the University of Reading, prepared through the process of electrospinning. Currently we... -
The structure of pharmaceuticals in aqueous solution: towards better drug sol...
The pharmaceutical industry has been described as being 'in a period of crisis' as the number of drug approvals relative to most major pharmaceutical companies Research and... -
Static and dynamic structure of oil/water microemulsions to improve enhanced ...
After initial and secondary oil recovery up to 50% of the oil can be left behind in the reservoir. Various enhanced oil recovery (EOR) techniques can be applied to improve the... -
The structure of ceramides in a model membrane environment
This proposal aims to investigate the structure of ceramide, an important component of cellular membranes in a mimic membrane environment. After assessment of this molecule in... -
Controlled Assembly of Cationic Polythiophene-Surfactant Complexes
We intend to study the phase behaviour of 2 cationic polythiophenes, P3MAHT and P3ImiHT, in the presence of the perfluorinated surfactant potassium... -
Encapsulation of hydrophobic species in mixed micelles in polymer solutions
This proposal continues our investigations into film-forming polyelectrolyte-surfactant solutions. We have found that mixed micelle systems offer greater control over micelle...