Microenvironmental differences amongst micelles of various shapes and structures

Micelles of different amphiphiles adopt different shapes and internal packing arrangements in water, depending on their chemical structures and the conditions of the medium. Two microenvironmental features, namely the polarity and the microviscosity that the aggregate offers to a solubilized molecule, have been monitored using extrinsic fluorescence probes. While the differences between micelles of spherical and rod-like shapes are not always distinct, stacked micelles and peptide micelles offer distinctly lower polarity and higher microviscosity to solubilizates than the others.