(590b) Stimuli-responsive Surfactant Self-assembly

The design of stimuli-responsive surfactants offers many opportunities for elucidation of fundamental issues underlying surfactant self-assembly in solution as well as development of new technologies. This presentation will begin with a brief discussion of photo-active surfactants, including an overview of the contributions of Jack Zakin to the area of light-responsive surfactants as drag reducing fluids. The second part of the talk will move to discuss electrochemical control of self-assembly at interfaces using redox-active surfactants. Specifically, we have found that redox-active surfactants, which shuttle between classical (reduced) and bolaform (oxidized) states, can lower recombination rates following light-induced charge separation at dye-decorated hydrophobic electrodes immersed in water. Our results highlight the potential utility of redox-active surfactants to control interfacial charge transfer in photovoltaic and water-splitting technologies.