The mesoscopic simulation on the structues of the surfactant solution using dissipative particle dynamics

With a simple model of surfactant which consists of hydrophilic head group and hydrophobic tail groups connected by harmonic springs, structural change of the association structures of surfactant in an aqueous solution was studied using the dissipative particle dynamics (DPD) simulation. The effect of the hydrophilic interaction between the head and water molecules and the hydrophobic interaction between the tail and water molecules and the head and tail on the structural change of the association structures was studied. Simulations show that proper value of these interaction parameters could yield desirable change of the association structure depending on the concentration of the surfactant. For example, a hexagonal structure appears when the volume fraction of surfactant of SDS (sodium dodecyl sulfate) becomes 25 % in aqueous solution, which is in good agreement with observation.