Association between hydrophobic polyelectrolytes and surfactants

Most of the advances in this field during the past year concern the behavior of systems based on polyelectrolytes that bear long alkyl sidechains such as hydrophobically modified and polysoap sidechains. Polyelectrolytes with hydrophobic backbones are also of interest in this context. The properties of these systems studied in bulk are now beginning to be well understood but more information is still needed at a molecular level. The behavior of such mixed systems at the interfaces and in the solid state seems to be attracting increasing attention.