Trimethylsilyl hedgehogs – a novel class of super-efficient hydrocarbon surfactants

Abstract

Presented here are the results for a novel class of hydrocarbon surfactants, termed trimethylsilyl hedgehogs (TMS-hedgehogs), due to the presence of silicon in the tails. By comparing the surface properties of these hybrid hedgehogs to purely hydrocarbon equivalents, links between performance and the structure are made. Namely, by controlling the molecular volume of the surfactant fragments, improvements can be made in surface coverage, generating lower surface energy monolayers. Small-angle neutron scattering (SANS) data have been collected showing that these novel surfactants aggregate to form ellipsoidal micelles which grow with increasing concentration. This study highlights the sensitive relationship between surface tension and the surfactant chain, for designing new super-efficient surfactants close to the limit of the lowest surface tensions possible.