Abstract
Soap bars can be viewed as pseudo-binary two-phase composites consisting of solid particulate suspended in water-enriched medium. Understanding the size and the distribution of the two phases in a bar is of interest to cosmetic industry. Electron Energy Loss Spectroscopy (EELS) combined with Scanning Transmission Electron Microscope (STEM) has been used to perform water mapping in certain biological systems. Here we report preliminary analysis of soap-water matrix in a soap bar by employing EELS and spectrum imaging techniques.Thin slices of soap bars containing 13% water (as measured using Karl Fischer titrator) were frozen using a Leica high-pressure freezer (EM PACT). 200 nm thick cryo-sections were cut at -160°C. The frozen sections were cryo-transferred at -170°C to a Philips CM20 FEG electron microscope equipped with the Gatan CCD spectrometer ENFINA interfaced to an Emispec Vision system for digital control and data acquisition.
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