Sodium bis-(2-ethylhexyl) sulfosuccinate sepf-aggregation in vacuo: Molecular Dynamics simulation

Molecular dynamics (MD) simulations were conducted for systems in vacuo consisting of n AOT
anions (bis(2-ethylhexyl)sulfosuccinate ions) and n 1 or n Na+ ions up to n = 20. For n = 15,
positively charged systems with Li+, K+, and Cs+ cations were also considered. All systems were
observed to form reverse micelle-like aggregates whose centre is occupied by cations and polar
heads in a very compact solid-like way, while globally the aggregate has the form of an elongated
and rather flat ellipsoid. Various types of statistical analyses were carried out on the systems to
enlighten structural and dynamical properties including gyration radius, atomic pair correlation
functions, atomic B-factor and moment of inertia tensor. For completeness and comparison the
stability of reverse micelle is tested in the case of neutral n = 20 system in CCl4 solution.