Correspondence between curvature, packing parameter, and hydrophilic-lipophilic deviation scales around the phase-inversion temperature.

We show in this paper that three ways of characterizing "spontaneous" lateral packing of amphiphiles are equivalent: the spontaneous curvature, the molecular packing parameter, and the refined hydrophilic-lipophilic balance known as HLD (hydrophilic-lipophilic deviation). Recognition of this equivalence, with its underlying hypothesis of incompressible fluid with lowest surface energy, reinforces the single parameter bending energy expression implicit in the classical papers by Ninham and Israelachvili, as well as all the predictive models of solubilization developed as yet.