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Surface and interfacial tensions are phenomena that effect our everyday life. We can find numerous examples were surface tension plays a role. Take a classic example of a spider walking on a surface of water. Change that water to ethanol and the poor spider will drown. Why? Because the surface tension of water is high enough to support the weight of the spider but with much lower surface tension, ethanol can’t do the same. High surface tension of water is also the reason why rain comes down as a spherical drop. High surface energy drives the water drop to take a shape with as little surface area as possible, making a sphere shape most favorable.

Now you might think that who cares about the spider, they can stay on the dry land. And the water drop shape is not really that important either. But the thing is that if the surface tension of water would be much lower, nothing would really float on top. Even the smallest particles would sink to the bottom causing the failure of the ecosystem. And furthermore, there would not really be water in a liquid form as it would simply evaporate to atmosphere.

By now, I hope you are convinced that surface tension is needed to have life as we know it. If we move away from fundamental problems that would arise of not having surface tension, we can see that it is highly important parameter also in many industrial processes.

Surface tension determines the efficiency of detergent formulation

The high surface tension of water makes it a relatively poor cleaning detergent. By increasing the temperature of water (as is often done when washing clothes or dishes), the cleaning efficiency increases slightly as surface tension decreases. The effect of temperature alone is not enough to make water a good detergent and thus addition of surfactants is needed. Surfactants are surface active molecules that adsorb to the interface decreasing the surface tension. Surface tensions are routinely measured when detergent formulations are developed.

Defect-free coatings by surface tension optimization of paints

The basic requirement for paints is that it can form a uniform, defect-free coating on a surface. Many of the surface defects like levelling and orange peel and craters or fish eyes, are related to surface tension and can be solved by fine-tuning it. To affect the surface tension of the paint, small amounts of surfactants need to be added. As lower surface tension can be related to better wetting of the substrate, relatively low surface tensions of paints are needed. However, too low of a surface tension can also cause levelling issues. Due to this, a surface tension balance need to be achieved to have defect free coating.

Interfacial tension is the key factor in enhanced oil recovery

In oil recovery, different enhanced oil recovery methods such as CO2 flooding are used to increase the recovery rates. After CO2 is being injected into an oil reservoir, it contacts and interacts with the reservoir oil and brine, thus changing both reservoir equilibrium conditions as well as fluid properties. The effectiveness of enhanced oil recovery is related to issues like CO2 penetration into the reservoir pores, as well as its ability to displace the brine and oil in the reservoir and lower the viscosity of the oil. Interfacial tension between CO2 – water and CO2 - oil is thus important for effective oil recovery.

Surface and interfacial tension affects the performance of pharmaceutical compounds

Surface and interfacial tension plays a crucial role in many pharmaceutical processes from tablet coating to drug solubility and stability.

Coatings on tablets are typically used to improve the appearance, mask the taste and odor or control the rate of drug release. Polymers are typically used as coating and there for the surface tension of the polymer solutions effects on the successfulness of the coating. Surface active molecules are routinely added to polymer coating solutions to lower their surface tension. Thus, knowledge of critical micelle concentration of surfactants is highly important also in pharmaceutical industry.

Interfacial properties have also a clear impact on the solubility of the drug. For example, different types of liposomal delivery systems have been studied to improve the effectiveness of existing drug formulations. Liposomes are composed of phospholipids and cholesterol. To find the optimal ratio of phospholipid, cholesterol and drug for maximal drug release and stability, surface tension of liposome should be estimated.

Emulsion stability is also important in drug development as emulsions based drugs are used especially as injections and personal care products. Surfactants and polymers act as emulsion stabilizers by lowering the interfacial tension between disperse and continuous phases.

Interfacial tension determines the stability of food products

Many food products like milk, margarine, mayonnaise and ice-cream are emulsions. An emulsion consists of two immiscible liquids (usually oil and water), with one liquid dispersed in the other as small droplets. In addition to these two phases, emulsions contain emulsifiers that have a key role in the stability of the emulsion. Although it is possible to produce oil-water emulsions by homogenizing them together, the formed emulsion is not stable and will quickly separate into two phases. Emulsifiers are surface active molecules that absorb at oil-water interface producing a membrane like layer that can prevent the coalescence of the drops and thus stabilize the emulsions. In food products, there are typically some naturally occurring emulsifiers such as proteins and lipids but emulsifiers are also added in production stage. To study the emulsifiers in food products, interfacial tension measurements play a key role.

This post is a version of a published on Surface Science Blog Nov 15, 2017

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Share 48 9 Comments Dean Hidayat

Chemist of Pigment Paste and Coating Product

3y

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Thank you for your explanation about the effect of high surface tension in paint. It helps me to know why we use silicone surface additive in our coating formula to avoid the coating defects

Like Reply 1 Reaction Yasser Hafiz 5y

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thank you for your useful words ,but please send to me any free downlood reffrences taking about same subject, to help my son in his undergraduate research

Like Reply 1 Reaction Viviane Prates 5y

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Dear Susanna, Thank you for the great material published. I will send an email to ask you some questions about advanced oil recovery.

Like Reply 1 Reaction Man Singh 6y

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Survismeter is a new invention in area of surface and interfacial sciences along with a new parameter noted as friccohesity. Survismeter measures surface tension, interfacial tension, wettability, viscosity, friccohesity, particle surface area and size, coagulability of liquid mixtures, nanoemulsion stability, hydrophobicity and hydrophilicity, Pi-conjugation activity, induced dipolar activity together.

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