Theory of lipid monolayer and bilayer chain-melting phase transitions

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Abstract
Recent experiments on lipid monolayers at the air–water interface show that the phase transition at small areas per molecule is a first-order chain-melting transition similar to the melting transition observed in bilayers. This result is in agreement with the results of older statistical-mechanical theories. In this paper new calculations are performed for one of the older theories which applies to both monolayers and bilayers. This theory employs an oversimplified, but rigorously solvable, statistical-mechanical model for the excluded volume interactions between hydrocarbon chains. In the new calculations the effective van der Waals cohesive interaction is modified to compensate for the reduced dimensionality of the model. The size of the bilayer phase transition is now in much better agreement with experiment.

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