Transmission Electron Microscopy Observations of Micelle Structure in a Vinyl Acetate-based Microemulsion

One of the biggest challenges in studying micro-emulsions is the precise determination of the spatial structure of their micelles, to the extent that very scarce literature is available on this subject. In this work, a study of the various preparation techniques for the Transmission Electron Microscopy (TEM) analysis of a micro-emulsion of the vinyl-acetate/water/surfactant system is presented. The results indicate that the preparation method is a determining parameter if meaningful results are to be obtained.