Talk:Micelle

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Contents 1 I have never heard anyone refer to micelles as micellae 2 Attention needed 3 Driving force? 4 Micelles increases entropy 5 plural form

[edit] I have never heard anyone refer to micelles as micellae

How do you pronounce "micelle"?

I think this might be like using penes as the plural for penis. It may be proper but it just isn't done.24.181.29.106

Should this page be merged (together with lipid bilayer) to a new heading "lipid structures"? --Eleassar777 14:50, 24 May 2005 (UTC)

I don't think so, as micelles can be formed by chemicals other than lipids. --Solidpeg 00:39, 14 Jun 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Attention needed

I had this page on my watchlist, and some recent edits seem to have messed it up. I'm not sure what the correct version of this page is, but I'm concerned about the recent edits. --DannyWilde 08:05, 8 November 2005 (UTC)

Actually i'm still not sure about this. Perhaps any talent can edit it in order to make it clearer? Thanks...--Winter1211 17:36, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Driving force?

The driving force for formation of the micelle is better to be explained by the Gibbs free energy. In fact one can just using the regular solution theory to give a good and quantitative arguement.

[edit] Micelles increases entropy

The aggregation of amphiphatic molecules actually increases the entropy of the surrounding water molecules. Water molecules build hydrogen bonds to other polar molecules. If an amphiphatic or hydrophobic molecule is immersed in water, water molecules next to the concerned molecule have a reduced number of possible partners for hydrogen bonding - and their order is increased (="small entropy"). In order to increase entropy ("disorder") of the water molecules, amphiphatic or hydrophic molecules aggregate which actually decreases the surface/volume ratio. The ordering of water molecules around the hydrophic molecule or the hydrophobic part of the amphiphatic molecule is called clathrate structure or cage. That's why dispersed oil droplets in water will always form a big oil drop. The dispersed oil droplets refers to high order (of water molecules) and the big drop refers to small order of water molecules.

See Alberts: "Molecular Biology of the Cell"

• The hydrophobic effect is not necessarily entropic; it can be enthalpic. This depends on the temperature. See "Proteins" by Creighton. Biophys 21:22, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] plural form

This article says that the plural is micellae, then uses micelles throughout! Jeff Knaggs 08:38, 12 September 2006 (UTC)