Relaxation of surfactants adsorption layers at liquid interfaces

The relaxation behaviour of surfactant layers provides a deep insight into the composition and structure of adsorbed layers at liquid interfaces. The development of professional experimental tools created a helpful basis for an increasing interest in these studies. In addition, the theoretical basis has been improved in many aspects such that for several surfactant systems a quantitative understanding is already possible. In particular the consideration of the changes in molar area of adsorbed molecules, introduced into the thermodynamics of adsorbed layers first by Fainerman in 1995, due to changes in the surface coverage allowed a considerably better, in many cases even quantitative understanding of the surface relaxation. Another important additional property, introduced into the thermodynamics and consequently also into the mechanisms of relaxation processes in interfacial layers, is the two-dimensional compressibility, important for the response to deformations of rather packed interfacial layers. The experimentally observed negative dilational viscosity is discussed only briefly and considered essentially in terms of experimental and theoretical shortcomings. The relaxation behaviour of nano- and microparticles, in literature often addressed is compounds able to act “instead of surfactants” are also addressed and some peculiarities discussed, while the obvious interrelation between the dilational rheology and stability of foams and emulsions is not analysed in detail.