Figure 2.

Chemical potential μ_i as a function of surfactant concentration c_i. The red dash-dotted line gives the chemical potential of molecularly dissolved surfactant, according to μ_i,mon = μ⁰_i,mon + RTlna_i (μ⁰_i,mon becomes more positive with increasing hydrophobicity of the surfactant, thereby increasing its tendency for binding to sites and lowering the cmc). Also shown are the levels for the chemical potentials of micelles (μ_i,mic), within a lipid bilayer (μ_i,bil) and two different potential binding sites on a virus protein (μ_i,prot).