Cooperative binding of nonionic surfactant to hydrophobically modified polyanions as studied by frontal analysis continuous capillary electrophoresis

The binding of a nonionic surfactant, Triton X-100 (TX), to amphiphilic copolymers of sodium 2-(acrylamido)-2-methylpropanesulfonate and N-dodecylmethacrylamide (C12) (p(A/C12(x)), where x denotes the mol % content of C12) was investigated by frontal analysis continuous capillary electrophoresis (FACCE) combined with dynamic light scattering focusing on the effect of the hydrophobe content on the binding in a wide range of x (5-60 mol %). From binding isotherms obtained from FACCE data, the binding was found to be cooperative in the whole range of x. Furthermore, a significant change in the binding behavior, i.e., cooperativity, was found to occur in a relatively narrow range of x (38-50 mol %), which is attributable to a change in the self-association behavior of p(A/C12(x)) in this x range.