9312715 Rosen The environmental impact of chemicals causes increasing concern.. One method of minimizing the environmental effects of chemicals such as surfactants that are used for their "performance" is to increase their efficiency and effectiveness. For a given level of performance, less chemical raw material is then required and less chemical effluent must be treated. A new type of surfactant that contains two hydrophilic groups of two hydrophobic groups in the molecule (called "gemini" type) has recently been shown to have surface activity form one to more than two orders of magnitude greater than comparable conventional surfactant, depending upon surfactant structure. It has also been shown, in initial studies, to interact more strongly with other surfactants than comparable conventional surfactants. Since increased interaction strength increases the probability of synergy in mixtures of surfactants, this indicated that geminis are more likely to exhibit synergism in interfacial properties when mixed with other surfactants. This proposal is for a systematic study of chemical structure/fundamental interfacial property relationships, including interactions in mixed monolayers and mixed micelles, of well-defined, well-purified geminis, to be synthesized for the most part in our institute. The necessary data can be obtained from equilibrium and dynamic surface tension measurements, supplemented by NMR studies on micellar solutions and reflectance-absorbance FTIR studies on monolayers. In addition to increasing our knowledge of structure/interfacial property relationships and of molecular interactions in mixed micelles and monolayers, the results of this study should provide guidelines for the design and use of surfactant systems with maximized desired interfacial properties and minimized environmental impact for industrial use. ***
