ABSTRACT
A surfactant (surface-active agent) is an amphiphilic molecule containing both hydrophilic and lipophilic segments. Surfactants reduce interfacial tension and aid in the solubilization of hydrophilic compounds into hydrophobic solvents, or vice versa, due to their amphiphilic nature. Surfactants are capable of forming micelles, spherical aggregates arranged so that the hydrophilic segment interacts with the aqueous phase and the lipophilic segment is oriented to interact with the organic phase. The structure of a typical normal micelle is shown in Figure 1. The opposite structures, called reverse micelles (Fig. 1), are also formed whereby the lipophilic segment interacts with the continuous organic phase and the hydrophilic heads are directed to the core of the micelle, thus interacting with the aqueous phase.
