Surfactants at Expanding Liquid Surfaces, GR/M83797 Final Report

This project arose out an EPSRC/Unilever funded programme in the mid-1990’s in which we established the overflowing cylinder (OFC) as a platform for studying adsorption kinetics and Marangoni effects in surfactant solutions, using the cationic surfactant hexadecyltrimethyl ammonium bromide (C16TAB) as a model system. Following the success of the earlier project, a new collaborative programme was launched with Dr. Julian Eastoe at Bristol to extend the study to a range of diverse surfactant systems and to develop quantitative models of surfactant adsorption. The Bristol group was tasked with the synthesis of surfactants (including deuterated materials for neutron reflection (NR)) and the measurement of dynamic surface tensions by light scattering and maximum bubble pressure (MBP) measurements. The Oxford group was responsible for laser Doppler velocimetry (LDV) and ellipsometry measurements and for the development of theoretical models. NR experiments were carried out jointly.