Submitted by [deleted] t3_1134yz3 in askscience
ScienceIsSexy420 t1_j8u14jf wrote
Reply to comment by Megalomania192 in Why do some surfactants lather while others don't? by [deleted]
I've always wondered about this too, and it was never addressed during my undergrad chemistry degree. Thanks for the great explanation! I didn't get the see the answer you are referring to before it was removed, but the molecular organization you are describing (the air/surfactant/water/surfactant/air organization) certainly sounds a lot like a micelle structure to me? What am I missing (again I didn't read the other comment).
Megalomania192 t1_j8uahrr wrote
It's a fairly niche area, I'm not surprised that you didn't cover it in Undergrad.
I had a class on Interfacial Thermodynamics that covered the theory relevant to this (that I remember almost nothing about other than it having 80 or so 'essential' equations to comprehend in a 10 lecture course), surfactants weren't discussed explicitly in the class but thermo is thermo and applies to all systems equally.
I came across this particular area of knowledge doing some post-doctoral work for an excellent physical chemist who specialised in surfactants.
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The answer that was removed kind of boiled down to 'if it forms micelles it forms foam' with some very vague statements in support. It was poorly written, didn't use scientific language, mixed up cause and effect. Most of the facts weren't wrong, but they weren't factors in foaming behaviour. It actually made it pretty difficult to dispute, which is why I didn't bother to explicitly address it. Didn't want to get drawn into a potential pedantry showdown!
The bit I remember was a dubious claim that seemed to suggest that the air partitions into the core of the micelle, which is completely untrue (but was hard to understand exactly what he meant because of the lack of technical language). FYI when you bubble air into a surfactant solution you are in fact creating a new area of air/water interface along which the surfactant forms a typical monolayer.
Anyhoo! Not a problem anymore.
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