ABSTRACT
A variety of surface-active reagents, also known as surfactants, are employed in industry to achieve certain desirable changes in the interfacial properties of a system (Rosen 2004). The surfactants are used with as diverse a group of products as motor oils and lubricants, laundry detergents, personal care products and cosmetics, food additives, pharmaceutical formulations, additives for petroleum recovery, paints, leather processing, building materials, ceramic processing, and mineral processing materials. The success of all surfactant-based processes depends on the ability of the surfactant to possess the desired properties-sometimes the properties can even be conicting (e.g., aqueous solubility and ability to impart maximum hydrophobicity)— required for that particular application. The increasing demands on enhancing the efcacy of the surfactants for a particular application and decreasing its cost at the same time has necessitated a search for a scientically robust framework for designing tailor-made surfactants customized for each application, preferably based on rst principles. The availability of such a powerful framework will eventually replace the current trial-and-error methodology of surfactants design (which is time-consuming and extremely costly in terms of effort) with a more robust rational design of surfactants. Such a design framework must incorporate the current understanding about the adsorption of surfactants at interfaces.
