Presently, another study is in preparation with SRC, Innovation Saskatchewan, and an oil company from Calgary, to use our grain products as surfactants. Surfactants are compounds that lower the surface tension (or interfacial tension) between two liquids or between a liquid and a solid. Surfactants may act as detergents, wetting agents, emulsifiers, foaming agents, and dispersants. The typical effect of detergents is as in a salad dressing where they make vinegar and oil mix by forming micelles. (Figure 1)
.png)
Figure 1 - Diagram of a Micelle
The above diagram shows a micelle containing oil in aqueous suspension, such as might occur in an emulsion of oil in water. In this example, the surfactant molecules are shown with red heads, and blue tails. The oil-soluble tails project into the oil (blue), while the water-soluble heads remain in contact with the water phase (red). The "tails" of the surfactant ions are lipophilic and remain inside the oil because they interact more strongly with oil than with water. The "heads" of the polar surfactant molecules form the surfaces of the micelle, because they interact more strongly with water. They form a hydrophilic outer layer that forms a barrier between micelles. This inhibits the oil droplets, the hydrophobic cores of micelles, from merging into fewer, larger droplets ("emulsion breaking").
Saponins are such surfactants consisting of polar molecules with "heads," and "tails" that form micelles of either water in oil, or oil in water.