Abstract
Flow of oil on the surface of water has been observed since the 19th century, but it was only at the beginning of the 20th century that Lord Rayleigh suggested that films are composed of a monolayer of molecules. It was necessary to wait for another 20 years for Langmuir and Harkins to independently demonstrate the formation of films composed of a monolayer of molecules on the surface of water and reveal that the formation of such layers is only possible if the molecules constituting the film are amphiphilic (Sect. 9.3.1):
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insoluble in water due to the presence of a hydrophobic chain (paraffin chains, for example);
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having a hydrophilic polar “head” at one end (such as, a -COOH carboxyl or -OH hydroxyl or ionic termination).
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References
Israelachvili, J.: Intermolecular and Surface Forces ( Academic Press, London 1992 ).
Knobler, C. M., Desai, R.C.: Phase transitions in monolayers, Ann. Rev. Phys. Chem. 43, 207–236 (1992).
Mühlwald, H.: Surfactant layers at water surfaces, Rep. Prog. Phys. 56, 653–685 (1993).
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© 2002 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg
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Papon, P., Leblond, J., Meijer, P.H.E. (2002). Transitions in Thin Films. In: The Physics of Phase Transitions. Advanced Texts in Physics. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-04989-1_10
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-04989-1_10
Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg
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