Surfactants

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Abstract
The term surfactant is routinely used as shorthand for the more descriptive term surface active agent. Sometimes a surfactant is defined as any material that “lowers the surface tension of water.” This definition of a surfactant is unsatisfactory, since the lowering of surface tension is a property of matter. Reduced surface tension is merely evidence for the adsorption of soluble or insoluble molecules at the interface of two phases (e.g., in the most common examples under discussion, at the border between air and water). Attempts to learn more about this phenomenon occupied some of the most creative scientists since Pliny the Elder’s efforts to understand the calming effect of oil on turbulent seas [1].

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