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A surfactant is briefly defined as a material that can greatly reduce the surface tension of water when used in very low concentrations. Surfactants constitute the most important group of detergent components. Generally, these are water-soluble surface-active agents comprised of a hydrophobic portio n, usually a long alkyl chain, attached to hydrophilic or water solubility enhancing functional groups. They can be categorized under following heads. They can be anionic, nonionic, cationic, and ampholytic. They are widely used in the detergent industry, in emulsification, lubrication, catalysis, and tertiary oil recovery and in drug delivery. Surfactants have been used in the investigation of the denaturation of bacteriorhodopsin and in thermal stability experiments of rhodopsin. Affinity surfactants have been used as reversibly bound ligands in high performance affinity chromatography. They are employed to promote the dissociation of proteins from nucleic acids on extraction from biological material. They also used in biochemistry are the solubilization of enzymes in apolar solvents via reversed micelles and the isolation of hydrophobic proteins. A wide range of surfactants is manufactured by host of manufacturers.
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