Volatile surfactants: Characterization and areas of application

Amphiphilic aroma molecules, representatives of fragrance molecules, are introduced as dynamic volatile surfactants. Surface tension of their aqueous solutions proves to be a sensitive and revealing quantity, used for assessment of the adsorption-evaporation behavior both under equilibrium conditions and in regimes of no instantaneous equilibrium. Such volatile amphiphiles are characterized by fast adsorption from bulk solution at an air-water interface, on a timescale of tens of microseconds, and exhibit synergetic effect in mixtures with conventional micellar-forming surfactants. Their ability to evaporate from the interface on a time scale of minutes suggests their applications as “temporal” dynamic cosurfactants in technologies involving fast formation of new surfaces. Current challenges concern evaluation of specific material parameters of volatile aroma surfactants in order to enable their selection for targeted applications. • Aroma compounds are considered as dynamic volatile surfactants. • Approaches in evaluation of the “structure–property” relationship are identified. • The dynamic interfacial behavior of volatile amphiphiles is studied by both dynamic and equilibrium methods. • Adsorption–desorption and evaporation behavior were successfully described by modeling. • Volatile surfactants are envisaged to improve surface-emerging technologies.