Solution Chemistry of Surfactants

Book excerpt: The 52nd Colloid and Surface Science Symposium of the Divis ion of Colloid and Surface Chemistry of the American Chemical Society was held in Knoxville, TN, June 12-14, 1978, and one of its Sections was devoted to the topic of Solution Chemistry of Surfactants. Although it was billed as the Section on Solution Chemistry of Surfactants, but it was indeed a veritable inter national symposium on this topic as 51 papers by about 100 con tributors from 12 countries were listed in the program. The present volume and its companion volume 2 document the proceedings of the above-mentioned Section on Solution Chemistry of Surfactants. In 1976 there was held an international symposium on Micellization, Solubilization and Microemulsions in Albany, l the proceedings of which have been chronicled in two volumes. A great deal of material dealing with micelles contributed by a legion of prominent researchers constitutes these volumes but a few subtopics were not adequately covered; so it was deemed appro priate to cover these topics as well as the recent progress in the general area of aggregation of surfactants in this Section. Also as it is the amphiphilicity or amphipathicity* of a surfact ant molecule which is responsible for both adsorption at inter faces and aggregation in solution, so it was considered quite apropos to include the topic of adsorption at interfaces in this Section. Concomitantly, the present volumes not only cover the aggregation phenomena but also the adsorption at interfaces.