Surfactants: Recent advances and their applications

Surfactants have been widely used in many industrial products such as detergents, medicines, and anti-corrosive treatments due to their unique structures consisted of two different molecular parts and the broad range of selection. Surfactants have also contributed significantly to many research fields, especially in nanotechnology. For example, the amphiphilic nature of surfactants has been exploited to stabilize hydrophobic nanomaterials in water, affording access to a plethora of solution-processed nanomaterial-based scalable applications. Surfactants are also a key additive in the production of well-controlled nanoparticles. Surfactant-assisted metallic nanoparticle production has enabled the realization of colorimetric sensors, which are of massive interest in numerous interdisciplinary applications owing to their simplicity, practical applicability, cost-effective production, high stability, and high selectivity. Surfactants added during nanoparticle synthesis play a critical role in optimizing the sensor sensitivity and selectivity because they directly affect the nanoparticle properties. Further, a new category of surfactants with magnetic properties has been introduced for drug delivery applications. In this short review, we provide an overview of the fundamentals of surfactants and their applications for the development of nanotechnology.