ABSTRACT
A review of micelles' quarter century history, no matter how cursory, must not bypass the "double-relaxation" model initiated by N. Muller, experimentally tested by R. Zana and colleagues and theoretically developed by E. A. G. Aniansson and coworkers. In 1920 McBain and Salmon proposed the existence of micelles, while in 1936 G. S. Hartley ventured to guess what the micelle might look like. A good agreement was found between the correlation times for reorientation of trans-decalin in micelles and in hydrocarbon solvents with the same chain length. Engberts used a set of nine related surfactants to show that minor structural variations lead to preferential formation of spherical micelles, rodlike micelles, or vesicles. The solubilization capacity of micelles is a recurrent theme in the micelle literature. Twenty-five years ago, people began grappling with micelles in the hope of catalyzing organic reactions with an efficiency and selectivity rivaling that of enzymes.
