Adsorption of hexadecyl maltoside on hydrophobised silica

The surface properties of alkylglycosides is of large interest as these non-ionic surfactants have proved to be versatile ingredients in manifold formulated products such as cosmetics, shampoos and detergents. Yet unlike other non-ionic surfactants, alkylglycoside surfactants are still poorly understood in terms of their interfacial behaviour and self-assembly that determine their performance. With this experiment we want to examine the interfacial properties of the alkylglycoside hexadecyl maltoside and how it is affected by changes in the headgroup conformation, concentration of the surfactant and temperature of the sample.