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

Abstract

The adsorption of surfactant molecules and nanoparticles at the air-liquid and solid-liquid interface play an important role in reducing surface tension and interfacial tension respectively thereby increasing wetting properties to a reasonable mark. Therefore, the combination of both i.e. surfactant as well as nanoparticles in an aqueous phase can be of great interest to investigate the wettability of hair surface. Consequently, in this report, the experimental studies were conducted to study the solution behavior of acacia (natural surfactant) solutions and its wettability on hair surface in absence and presence of silver nanoparticles (Ag NPs) as additive. Natural surfactants have been chosen over synthetic one because of its biocompatibility, biodegradable, nontoxic, and nonionic natures. The nanoparticles used in this study were synthesized by chemical route from AgNO3 using NaBH4 in acacia medium where NaBH4 and acacia acts as a reducing and capping agent respectively. Moreover, insitu synthesis of silver nanoparticles (Ag NPs) using acacia was also done and performed wettability studies on hair and the obtained results was compared with the previous results. Characterizations of nanoparticles were performed with UV-Vis and FESEM to confirm the particles and its size. Physicochemical properties such as critical micellar concentration (CMC) and surface tension, contact angle, work of adhesion and surface energy of hair have been estimated and discussed. Characterization of hair surface was also done to study the surface roughness using AFM respectively.