Magnetic Soaps – A New Revolution

Magnetic Soaps – A New Revolution

A team led by Julian Eastoe, University of Bristol in Britain, has synthesized soap molecules that are sensitive to a magnetic field. Such substances open the way to control liquid emulsions simply by applying an external magnetic field, which would be useful
in many situations.

Soap molecules are surfactants, that is to say molecules having a hydrophilic part (attracted by the water molecules) and a hydrophobic part; of this fact, these molecules lessen the surface tension between water and, for example, oil when position themselves
at the interface of the two liquids, their hydrophilic part directed towards the water and their hydrophobic portion directed towards the oil. It is this decrease in surface tension that allows soap to dissolve oil in water. Indeed, the surfactant molecules,
also known as surfactants, by putting himself in the water-oil interface, making it much more elastic in the absence of surfactant, the oil can then be dispersed into many small droplets, separated from the water surrounding by soap molecules.

J. Eastoe and colleagues were able to incorporate metal ions such as FeCl ₄ ^– or FeCl ₃Br ^– on surfactant molecules and thereby making them susceptible to a magnetic field. In the absence of external magnetic field,
the new soap molecules are already more effective than surfactants from which they arise, in other words, they further reduce the surface tension. And when a magnetic field is applied, the surface tension undergoes a decrease additional: with a magnet of 0.4
tesla placed than one millimeter of aqueous solution soap, the surface tension is reduced by almost ten per cent.

So far, the researchers were able to modulate the physicochemical properties (degree of hydrophobicity, electrical conductivity, melting point, molecular aggregate size, etc..) Of surfactant solutions by changing parameters such as the p H, the
temperature or pressure. But it led to irreversible changes or required a large input of energy. Magnetic soaps offer the possibility of reversible changes via the application of an external field. One can thus consider soaps that can be easily recovered
after acting, what would be interesting for example in the processing operations of oil spills. For now, we are far, but a first proof of principle is made.

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Posted by Fouad Ashraf on Feb 28 2012. Filed under Sci-Tech, World. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry