Surfactant monolayer

Fig. XII-8. A schematic friction phase diagram showing the trends found in the friction forces of surfactant monolayers. (From Ref. 53.)...

Yamada S and Israelachvili J N 1998 Friction and adhesion hysteresis of fluorocarbon surfactant monolayer-coated surfaces measured with the surface forces apparatus J. Rhys. Chem. B 102 234-44... 

In the latter the surfactant monolayer (in oil and water mixture) or bilayer (in water only) forms a periodic surface. A periodic surface is one that repeats itself under a unit translation in one, two, or three coordinate directions similarly to the periodic arrangement of atoms in regular crystals. It is still not clear, however, whether the transition between the bicontinuous microemulsion and the ordered bicontinuous cubic phases occurs in nature. When the volume fractions of oil and water are equal, one finds the cubic phases in a narrow window of surfactant concentration around 0.5 weight fraction. However, it is not known whether these phases are bicontinuous. No experimental evidence has been published that there exist bicontinuous cubic phases with the ordered surfactant monolayer, rather than bilayer, forming the periodic surface. 

The process of adsorption of polyelectrolytes on solid surfaces has been intensively studied because of its importance in technology, including steric stabilization of colloid particles [3,4]. This process has attracted increasing attention because of the recently developed, sophisticated use of polyelectrolyte adsorption alternate layer-by-layer adsorption [7] and stabilization of surfactant monolayers at the air-water interface [26], Surface forces measurement has been performed to study the adsorption process of a negatively charged polymer, poly(styrene sulfonate) (PSS), on a cationic monolayer of fluorocarbon ammonium amphiphilic 1 (Fig. 7) [27],... 

Moreover, stable liquid systems made up of nanoparticles coated with a surfactant monolayer and dispersed in an apolar medium could be employed to catalyze reactions involving both apolar substrates (solubilized in the bulk solvent) and polar and amphiphilic substrates (preferentially encapsulated within the reversed micelles or located at the surfactant palisade layer) or could be used as antiwear additives for lubricants. For example, monodisperse nickel boride catalysts were prepared in water/CTAB/hexanol microemulsions and used directly as the catalysts of styrene hydrogenation [215]. 

In addition, it is of interest to note that investigations of the microscopic processes leading to nucleation, growth, oriented growth by the surfactant monolayer, and growth inhibition of nanoparticles in reversed micelles and of confinement and adsorption effects on such phenomena represent an intriguing and quite unexplored research field [218]. 

The time evolution of the mean size of CdS and ZnS nanoparticles in water/AOT/ -heptane microemulsions has been investigated by UV-vis spectrophotometry. It was shown that the initial rapid formation of fractal-hke nanoparticles is followed by a slow-growing process accompanied by superficial structural changes. The marked protective action of the surfactant monolayer adsorbed on the nanoparticle surface has been also emphasized [230,231],... 

Other examples of organized molecular assemblies of interest for photocatalysis are (1) PC-A, PC-D or D-PC-A molecules where PC, A and D fragments are separated by rigid bridges (2) host-guest complexes (3) micelles and microemulsions (4) surfactant monolayers or bilayers attached to solid surfaces, and (5) polyelectrolytes [19]. 

Although the notion of monomolecular surface layers is of fundamental importance to all phases of surface science, surfactant monolayers at the aqueous surface are so unique as virtually to constitute a special state of matter. For the many types of amphipathic molecules that meet the simple requirements for monolayer formation it is possible, using quite simple but elegant techniques over a century old, to obtain quantitative information on intermolecular forces and, furthermore, to manipulate them at will. The special driving force for self-assembly of surfactant molecules as monolayers, micelles, vesicles, or cell membranes (Fendler, 1982) when brought into contact with water is the hydrophobic effect. 

However, the spreading of a surfactant monolayer from a volatile solvent leaves behind a film that may not be in thermodynamic equilibrium with its bulk crystalline form or the aqueous subphase. It has been proposed that this is a result of the relatively high energy barriers to film collapse or dissolution into the subphase as compared with lowered interfacial free energy when a stable, insoluble surfactant monolayer is formed (Gershfeld, 1976). The rate at which a whole system approaches true equilibrium in such a system is often so slow that the monolayer film can be treated for most purposes as though it were at equilibrium with the subphase. 

The few examples of deliberate investigation of dynamic processes as reflected by compression/expansion hysteresis have involved monolayers of fatty acids (Munden and Swarbrick, 1973 Munden et al., 1969), lecithins (Bienkowski and Skolnick, 1974 Cook and Webb, 1966), polymer films (Townsend and Buck, 1988) and monolayers of fatty acids and their sodium sulfate salts on aqueous subphases of alkanolamines (Rosano et al., 1971). A few of these studies determined the amount of hysteresis as a function of the rate of compression and expansion. However, no quantitative analysis of the results was attempted. Historically, dynamic surface tension has been used to study the dynamic response of lung phosphatidylcholine surfactant monolayers to a sinusoidal compression/expansion rate in order to mimic the mechanical contraction and expansion of the lungs. 

As has been discussed in the preceding sections, it is expected that the surfactant monolayer exhibits "N"-shape nonlinearity in its dynamic tt-T characteristics. Thus, we would like to discuss the kinetics, assuming that G(Z0 is a cubic function. 

An important feature of surfactant monolayers is their transferability from the air-water interface to clean, smooth, solid supports such as glass or metal surfaces. Blodgett and Langmuir (67) developed this technique and employed it for building up multilayers whose thickness was that of a known number of molecular chain lengths. Recently, there has been considerable interest in the application of this technique to prepare organized multilayers for the study of optical, electrical, and catalytic properties of very thin films of known composition (47,53-55). 

Respiratory effects are more likely to occur after inhalation exposure to high concentrations of chloroform. It has been demonstrated that chloroform has a destructive influence on the pulmonary surfactant (Enhoming et al. 1986). This effect is probably due to the solubility of phospholipids in the surfactant monolayer and can cause collapse of the respiratory bronchiole due to the sudden increase in inhalation tension. Immediate death after chloroform inhalation may be due principally to this effect in the lungs (Fagan et al. 1977). It is unlikely that exposure levels of chloroform in the general environment or at hazardous waste sites would be high enough to cause these severe respiratory effects. 

Studies of the order within surfactant monolayers have been reported for many decades. Multilayer assemblies have been studied by electron as well as infrared absorption. Motivated by an older model proposed for the orientation of molecules (Langmuir, 1933 Epstein, 1950), and by recent theoretical calculations, these two potential models for tilt disorder in the monolayer have been examined. Both models arise because the monolayer structure tries to compensate for the difference between the equilibrium head-head and chain-chain distances that each piece of the molecule would want to attain if it were independent. In one model, the magnitude of the tilt is fixed, but the tilt direction wanders slowly through the lattice. In the second... 

Resistance in the oil layer (surfactant monolayer) at the external interface is negligible. 

Spreading of an insoluble (or temporarily insoluble) surfactant monolayer effectively produces a two-dimensional surface phase. This thin molecular layer exerts a lateral film pressure , which can be simply demonstrated by covering a water surface with a uniform layer of finely divided hydrophobic talc and placing a droplet of surfactant solution (0.003M CTAB solution) in its centre. The effect of the film pressure of the spreading surfactant is dramatic, as seen in Figures 8.8 and 8.9. 

Figure 8.13 Langmuir-Blodgett coating of surfactant monolayers.

Figure 8.14 Atomic force microscope image of a Langmuir-Blodgelt surfactant monolayer.

Figure 8.15 Typical film pressure isotherm for a surfactant monolayer.

The purpose of this paper will be to develop a generalized treatment extending the earlier mixed micelle model (I4) to nonideal mixed surfactant monolayers in micellar systems. In this work, a thermodynamic model for nonionic surfactant mixtures is developed which can also be applied empirically to mixtures containing ionic surfactants. The form of the model is designed to allow for future generalization to multiple components, other interfaces and the treatment of contact angles. The use of the pseudo-phase separation approach and regular solution approximation are dictated by the requirement that the model be sufficiently tractable to be applied in realistic situations of interest. 

The pseudo-phase separation approach has been successfully applied in developing a generalized nonideal multicomponent mixed micelle model (see I4) and it is Interesting to consider whether this same approach can be used to develop a generalized treatment for adsorbed nonideal mixed surfactant monolayers. The preferred form for suoh a model is that it be suitable (at least in principle) for treating multiple components and be extendable to other interfaoes and properties of interest suoh as oontaot angles. Earlier models (5, 18, 27) based on the pseudo-phase separation approach and... 

Adopting this viewpoint, the net interaction parameter for surface mixing in the present model may be seen as a useful way to account for changes in the surface free energy in nonideal mixed surfactant monolayers. Here, the parameter must not only account for the effects due to counterions, but for changes in molar surface... 

The reason for the success of such a simple model is that the dominating force in determining the surfactant composition on the surface originates from the free energy gain of replacing hydrocarbon-water contacts with hydrocarbon-hydrocarbon and water-water contacts when a surfactant molecule is adsorbed into the surfactant monolayer. 

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