Abstract
Surfactant science has historically emphasized bulk, thermodynamic measurements to understand the microemulsion properties of greatest industrial significance, such as interfacial tensions, phase behavior, and thermal stability. Recently, interest in the molecular properties of surfactants has grown among the physical chemistry community. This has led to the application of cutting-edge spectroscopic methods and advanced simulations to understand the specific interactions that give rise to the previously studied bulk characteristics. In this Perspective, we catalog key findings that describe the surfactant-oil and surfactant-water interfaces in molecular detail. We emphasize the role of ultrafast spectroscopic methods, including two-dimensional infrared spectroscopy and sum-frequency-generation spectroscopy, in conjunction with molecular dynamics simulations, and the role these techniques have played in advancing our understanding of interfacial properties in surfactant microemulsions.
Highlights
The importance of amphiphilic surfactants is difficult to overstate
Fatty acid components are commonly extracted from natural sources, such as palm oil, which leads to variability in the surfactant tail length
We have shown in a previous study of sorbitan surfactants that an uncontrolled synthesis can generate over 5000 individual surfactant structures, all of which may be present in the final sample
Summary
The importance of amphiphilic surfactants is difficult to overstate. Hygiene, cosmetics, foods, oil recovery, and, increasingly, organic synthesis are some of the industries where detergents are being used as emulsifiers and thickening agents. Surfactant science has largely relied on bulk experiments to characterize the properties of microemulsions such as phase stability, interfacial tension, and solute encapsulation Such function-forward, thermodynamic studies have generated useful data that allow for detergents to be used in a host of applications.. Interesting is the increasing application of ultrafast spectroscopies, molecular dynamics simulations, and probe molecule syntheses, which have empowered the biophysics community to make insights into the interfacial properties of lipid bilayers that were hitherto inaccessible using conventional techniques.19–25 These studies have helped develop an image of the bilayer–water interface that contains molecularscale structural and dynamical information and has begun uncovering the importance of lipid diversity in the biological function.. These include phosphates and carbonyls, functional groups commonly used in surfactants.35,36 These methods are highly complementary, jointly providing the structural and dynamic information needed to understand the interfacial environment (Scheme 1). We present preliminary results demonstrating that an improved understanding of the reverse micelle interfaces is essential to understanding chemical reactions carried out in these complex environments
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