Surfactant Surfactant Surfactants are compounds that lower the surface tension (or interfacial tension) between two liquids, between a gas and a liquid, or between a liquid and a solid. Surfactants may act as detergents, wetting agents, emulsifiers, foaming agents, and dispersants. The term "surfactant" is a blend of "surface active agent". In the United States National Library of Medicine's Medical Subject Headings (MeSH) vocabulary, "surfactant" is reserved for the meaning pulmonary surfactant. For the more general meaning, "surface active agent/s" is the heading. Surfactants are usually organic compounds that are amphiphilic, meaning they contain both hydrophobic groups (their "tails") and hydrophilic
Surface tension-driven nanoelectromechanical relaxation oscillator Surface tension-driven nanoelectromechanical relaxation oscillator This page is a fragment, additional input from experts is wanted to fix any errors or add any relevant content to the article. A surface tension-driven nanoelectromechanical relaxation oscillator, or NEMRO for short, is currently the world's smallest motor. Constructed from a 200-nanometer-long nanotube, a pair of liquid indium spheres, one measuring 5 nanometers across and the other 15 nanometers across. Electricity flows across the nanotube from the large sphere to the smaller sphere, causing the spheres to shuffle atoms between the large sphere and the small sphere, making the larger sphere shrink and the