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
Polymer adsorption used in conjunction with the following equation to determine the relationship between contact angle and surface energy of the solid, as surface tension ≈ surface energy for a solid: where Using these two equations, the surface energy of a solid can be determined simply by measuring the contact angle of two different liquids of known surface tension on that solid's surface. For heterogeneous surfaces (consisting of two or more different types of material), the contact angle of a drop of liquid at each point along the three phase contact line with a solid surface is a result of the surface