Many products around us which we use on a daily basis as well as many industrial process liquids are based on liquid formulations containing surfactants. Surfactants are the active ingredients in shampoos, conditioners, detergents and other cleaning formulations. The dual nature of surfactants is highly suitable for cleaning purposes since the hydrophobic component sticks to grease and dirt while the hydrophilic section sticks to the water and the clean surface, thus being able to remove and dissolve grease or dirt from the surface into the water phase. The surface and interfacial tension is a measure of the effectiveness of surfactant solutions.
The interfacial tension together with interfacial rheology also plays an important role when developing time and temperature stable formulations based on suspensions, emulsions or foams. Surfactants, polymers, lipids, proteins or particles are active ingredients for stabilizing suspensions, emulsions and foams by influencing the interfacial tension and flow behavior. These find applications in paint, petrochemical, pharmaceutical, cosmetic, personal care and food products.
Theta and Sigma series instruments from Attension enable determination of static surface and interfacial tensions, whereas Theta equipped with the pulsating drop module and BPA-800P provide information about the dynamic properties of liquid interfaces and speed of adsorption, such as interfacial rheology and dynamic surface tension, respectively.