Wettability of hair using natural and synthetic
surfactants in presence of silver nanoparticles as additive

Abstract

Synthetic surfactants are used for various industrial purposes ranging from surface cleaning, oil recovery,froth floatation, etc. The synthetic surfactants are not easily biodegradable and are quite costly, leaving surfactants extracted from microbial and plant as possible alternative sources to it.Plant surfactants on the other hand are cheaper and also suitable for mass production compared to surfactants extracted from microbial source,but it hasinferior wetting and surface tension properties compared to synthetic surfactant.So,silver nanoparticle was used as an additive,as it has antimicrobial properties and also increases the wetting property of the surfactant. This report mainly focuses on the wetting property of pure surfactant system on hair as well as the growth kinetics of silver nanoparticle in acacia solution and its effect on wettability of hair. The objective of this study is to obtain insight into the wetting behaviour of human hair in presence of three plant surfactants, namely reetha, acacia and shikakai and also along with silver nanoparticles synthesized in-situ in acacia extract.