CRIM 2653 Lecture Notes - Lecture 7: Surface Tension, Heat Capacity, Micelle
Document Summary
We have classified colloidal suspensions with respect to their affinity to the suspended particles for the continuous phase. We have classified them as lyophilic or lyophobic. Lyophilic system: each particle is surrounded by solvation layer (layer of molecules of solvent) that interact with suspended particles. This solvation layer provides protection from aggregation when two particles come together. Lyophobic system: the particle liquid interaction is not strong and the particles are prone to aggregation. We also mentioned that the definition lyophilic or lyophobic makes sense only if we define them for the pair (dispersion phase and continuous phase). For example, a particle may be lyophilic in oil and lyophobic in water . If we add a surfactant to the system which may be oil based or water based we can get formation of micelles. Let"s say we have water phase as a continuous phase, as we add surfactant, we have predominant accumulation of the surfactant at the interphase.