ABSTRACT
This chapter examines experimental details of the application of fluorescence techniques to the study of polymer-surfactant interactions. The characteristic of pyrene spectroscopy was exploited first by K. Kalyanasundaram and J. K. Thomas in a study of surfactant micelles and has been applied by the groups of N. J. Turro and R. Zana to the study of polymer-surfactant aggregates. Labeled-polymer experiments are often more informative because they report on phenomena from the aspect of the polymer. The photophysics of bis(l-pyrenylmethyl) ether (dipyme) provide a unique tool to study the interactions between hydrophobically modified polymers and surfactants. Some of the very features that make fluorescent dyes attractive as probes make them also a source of artifacts when applied to polymer/surfactant systems in water. Polymers may exhibit intrinsic fluorescence, as in the case of proteins or many water-insoluble polymers. Most experiments on polymer-surfactant systems reported to date rely either on fluorescence depolarization or on pyrene excimer formation.
