Exchange between surfactant mixtures

Specific-ion electrodes are expensive, temperamental and seem to have a depressingly short life when exposed to aqueous surfactants. They are also not sensitive to some mechanistically interesting ions. Other methods do not have these shortcomings, but they too are not applicable to all ions. Most workers have followed the approach developed by Romsted who noted that counterions bind specifically to ionic micelles, and that qualitatively the binding parallels that to ion exchange resins (Romsted 1977, 1984). In considering the development of Romsted s ideas it will be useful to note that many micellar reactions involving hydrophilic ions are carried out in solutions which contain a mixture of anions for example, there will be the chemically inert counterion of the surfactant plus the added reactive ion. Competition between these ions for the micelle is of key importance and merits detailed consideration. In some cases the solution also contains buffers and the effect of buffer ions has to be considered (Quina et al., 1980). 

The situation is, however, different in the alveolar region of the lung where the respiratory gas exchange takes place. Its thin squamous epithelium is covered by the so-called alveolar surface liquid (ASL). Its outermost surface is covered by a mixture of phospholipids and proteins with a low surface tension, also often referred to as lung surfactant. For this surfactant layer only, Scarpelli et al. [74] reported a thickness between 7 and 70 nm in the human lung. For the thickness of an additional water layer in between the apical surface of alveolar epithelial cells and the surfactant film no conclusive data are available. Hence, the total thickness of the complete ASL layer is actually unknown, but is certainly thinner than 1 gm. 

Aniansson showed that mixed micellar solutions of binary svuTactant mixtures are characterized by three relaxation processes two fast processes associated with the exchange of the two surfactants between mixed micelles and bvdk phase (Xn and X12) and a slow process associated with the forma-tion/breakdown of the mixed micelles (X2). The basic assumptions and the methods used to derive the expressions of the... 

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