Surfactants in paint agent". Surfactants are compounds that lower the surface tension of a liquid, the interfacial tension between two liquids, or the interfacial tension between a liquid and a solid. In solutions this behavior is known as wetting, and it occurs as a result of surfactants adsorbing to the air/water interface. Soluble surfactants are also capable of forming micelles and other aggregate structures in solution, leading to a stabilizing effect in latex paints. Surfactants in paint are used to change many end properties of a dried paint, as well as to emulsify paints in their liquid state. Surfactants affect a wide array
Surface tension into a micro-thin layer over the surface. Such a surface is said to be fully wettable by the liquid. In day-to-day life all of us observe that a stream of water emerging from a faucet will break up into droplets, no matter how smoothly the stream is emitted from the faucet. This is due to a phenomenon called the Plateau–Rayleigh instability, which is entirely a consequence of the effects of surface tension. The explanation of this instability begins with the existence of tiny perturbations in the stream. These are always present, no matter how smooth the stream is. If the