Relationship between surface tension and surface coverage.
Surfactant action is caused in part by a dramatic reduction in surface tension. Using surface excess measurements from a radioactive surfactant, it was possible to show that (a) the surface tension declines only slightly when the occupancy of the air/water interface increases from 0 to 60% of the maximum and (b) the steep drop in surface tension in region B (Figure  1 ), frequently observed to be linear, begins at about 80% occupancy. Surfactant continues to enter the interface cooperatively up to and past the critical micelle concentration. Linearity in region B is not indicative of surface saturation despite a seemingly constant surface excess throughout the region. The disparity between interfacial areas determined by surface tension and by other methods is discussed in terms of these results.
Department of Chemistry, Emory University, 1515 Dickey Drive, Atlanta, Georgia 30322, USA. menger@emory.edu
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