ABSTRACT
Surfactant molecules are composed of a polar head group that likes water and a nonpolar tail group that dislikes water, thus contributing to an intrinsic duality in their molecular characteristics. Despite their mutual antipathy, the head and tail groups of the surfactant cannot leave one another because they are covalently connected. The dilemma faced by these molecules is resolved in nature by the intriguing phenomenon of molecular self-assembly, wherein the amphiphiles self-assemble into three-dimensional structures with distinct and separate regions composed of the nonpolar parts and the polar parts, having minimal contact with one another.
