Catanionic micelles as a model to mimic biological membranes in the presence of anesthetic alcohols.

We show here the influence of n-alcohols (C(2)OH-C(8)OH) on the solubility behavior of cationic-anionic surfactant mixtures, so-called "catanionics". We studied catanionics of different compositions composed of sodium dodecyl sulfate (SDS)/cetyltrimethylammonium bromide (CTAB) and sodium dodecanoate (SDod)/CTAB mixtures. Interestingly, with a molar excess of SDS, long chain n-alcohols (C(4)OH-C(8)OH) significantly depress the solubility temperature of the SDS+CTAB catanionic and increase the kinetic stability of the solution. The visual observations of solubility temperatures of catanionics were further confirmed by differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) measurements. For the catanionics a multistep solubilization was observed by DSC, for which the sulfate headgroup is responsible. This was probed by replacing SDS by SDod. A remarkable analogy was found between the influence of the alcohols on the solubility patterns of the catanionic mixtures and on the anesthesia of tadpoles. Possible reasons for this analogy are discussed also in this paper.