Surfactants are ubiquitous in nature and industry. In this project you will use ultrafast spectroscopic techniques to study the interface of water and surfactants. The goal is to develop new methods to reduce the use of surfactants in industrial applications, which has great environmental benefits.

Work Activities

Surfactants are among the most used chemicals, fulfilling important roles in cleaning, as emulsifiers, and as foaming and wetting agents. Surfactants also play a crucial role in living systems, e.g. in the formation and functioning of membranes.

In this project you will study the interfacial properties of aqueous solutions of commonly used surfactants with advanced ultrafast spectroscopic techniques including vibrational surface sum-frequency generation. The signal measured with this technique provides direct information on the nature of the vibrations of the molecules near the surface and on the orientation of the molecular groups carrying ...