This book is a presentation and extension of surfactant science and also a technical resource for characterizing and formulating surfactants. It goes beyond the standard guidelines of hydrophilic-lipophilic balance (HLB), critical micelle concentration (CMC), Bancroft’s rule, Griffin numbers etc. to focus on surfactant phenomena as a dynamic system. It stresses parameters such as hydrophilic-lipophilic difference (HLD, an extension of Sallager’s SAD), curves of surface tension related to concentration, surface excess, partition coefficients, and area per surfactant molecule and shows how these can be used not only to quantify but also to create effective surfactant formulations. In explaining how property variables affect formulation results, the book offers numerous original phase diagrams and equations. A valuable feature of the text is that dozens of traditional and original equations are accessible as computer apps, thus helping readers reinforce their understanding and test their own data. Practical details are presented about concrete products, showing what works and does not. The technology in this text pertains to a range of industrial and specialized surfactants, with explicit attention given to cosmetics, cleaning agents, remediation of oil-contamination, paints, coatings, and biosurfactants.
From the Preface
The target audience for this book is a younger version of myself. I have included all those things I wish I had known years ago. Had I had this book, my life of formulating with surfactants would have been so much more productive!
This book, therefore, contains everything that I know about surfactant science that can be useful to someone (such as myself) who formulates with surfactants. So it is a good idea to make it clear right from the start that although there are many good answers to many of our formulation questions (and these answers are generally not the ones you read about) there are lots of surfactant questions for which surfactant science currently has no satisfactory answers…
