Surfactants

Abstract

Characteristically, surfactants in aqueous solution adsorb at interfaces and form aggregates (micelles of various shapes and sizes, microemulsion droplets, and lyotropic liquid crystalline phases). This book is about the behaviour of surfactants in solution, at interfaces, and in colloidal dispersions. Adsorption at liquid/fluid and solid/liquid interfaces, and ways of characterizing the adsorbed surfactant films, are explained. Surfactant aggregation in systems containing only an aqueous phase and in systems with comparable volumes of water and nonpolar oil are each considered. In the latter case, the surfactant distribution between oil and water and the behaviour of the resulting Winsor systems are central to surfactant science and to an understanding of the formation of emulsions and microemulsions. Surfactant layers on particle or droplet surfaces can confer stability on dispersions including emulsions, foams, and particulate dispersions. The stability is dependent on the surface forces between droplet or particle surfaces and the way in which they change with particle separation. Surface forces are also implicated in wetting processes and thin liquid film formation and stability. The rheology of adsorbed films on liquids and of bulk colloidal dispersions is covered in two chapters. Like surfactant molecules, small solid particles can adsorb at liquid/fluid interfaces and the final two chapters focus on particle adsorption, the behaviour of adsorbed particle films and the stabilization of Pickering emulsions.