This is the premier text on the properties and applications of surfactants. The revised and expanded third edition includes coverage of the literature that has appeared since publication of the previous edition, as well as new topics, including gemini surfactants, superspreading (or superwetting) by aqueous surfactant solutions of highly hydrophobic surfaces, green surfactants, and dynamic surface tension.

Using a minimum of mathematics, this book clearly describes the properties and applications of surfactants. It explains the mechanisms by which these materials operate in interfacial processes such as foaming, wetting, emulsion formation, and detergency, and shows the correlations between a surfactant's chemical structure and its action.

From the Preface: “The more than a decade since publication of the second edition has seen considerable progress in a number of important areas of surfactant chemistry, necessitating the publication of a third edition. This edition, consequently, contains a number of areas not included in the previous edition...Areas covered in the previous edition have been expanded and upgraded to reflect new developments. Tables of physico-chemical constants of surfactants, including critical micelle concentrations, areas/surfactant molecule at interfaces, and surfactant—surfactant interaction parameters have been greatly increased. Additional problems have been provided at the end of the chapters...”

Target Audience: Upper-level students, as well as industrial and academic practitioners, who are concerned with surfactants and interfacial phenomena.

Table of Contents:

Characteristic Features of Surfactants

Adsorption of Surface-Active Agents at Interfaces: The Electrical Double Layer

Micelle Formation by Surfactants

Solubilization by Solutions of Surfactants: Micellar Catalysis

Reduction of Surface and Interfacial Tension by Surfactants

Wetting and Its Modification by Surfactants

Foaming and Antifoaming by Aqueous Solutions of Surfactants

Emulsification by Surfactants

Dispersion and Aggregation of Solids in Liquid Media by Surfactants

Detergency and Its Modification by Surfactants

Molecular Interactions and Synergism in Mixtures of Two Surfactants

Gemini Surfactants

Index