Phase changes in micellar systems that are driven by chemical reactions

An ionically charged L-alpha-phase can be prepared without shear by mixing a small amount of methylformiate to a L-3-phase from alkyldimethyl-amineoxi de, hexanol and Rater. Within a few hours the methylformiate hydrolyses to formic acid and methanol. The formic acid protonates the amineoxide surfact ant headgroups and triggers the transformation of the L-3- to the L-alpha-p hase. The resulting L-alpha-phase is a low viscous classic L-alpha-phase wi th stacked bilayers. By shearing or simply by shaking of a thus produced sa mple of low viscosity it is transformed instantaneously into a highly visco elastic phase with densely packed multilamellar vesicles. At present, it is not clear which form of the L-alpha-phase is thermodynamically stable.