Publications by authors named "Ian McRobbie"

Hypothesis: Experiments show pronounced synergy in the reduction of surface tension when the nonionic surfactant Poly(oxy-1,2-ethanediyl), .alpha.-tris(1-phenylethyl)phenyl-.

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We investigated the film spreading during the evaporation of submillimeter oil-in-water emulsion droplets on a solid surface, and observed a novel phenomenon where the film follows a two-layer spreading. In combination with the instability at the film front, the spreading front acquires a flowerlike pattern. The emergence of the two-layer structure is attributed to micelles within the oil film that yield an oscillating disjoining pressure.

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Sebum is a complex mixture of skin lipids responsible for lubrication, moisture retention and skin protection from external factors such as bacteria and fungi. The physicochemical properties of natural sebum are not well understood and are not easily accessible. Artificial sebum is widely used for sebum-related research such as dermal bioaccessibility, fingerprint production, dermatology, removal and sebum studies.

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This paper presents a novel approach to predicting critical micelle concentrations (CMCs) by using graph neural networks (GNNs) augmented with Gaussian processes (GPs). The proposed model uses learned latent space representations of molecules to predict CMCs and estimate uncertainties. The performance of the model on a data set containing nonionic, cationic, anionic, and zwitterionic molecules is compared against a linear model that works with extended connectivity fingerprints (ECFPs).

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We show that a surface-grafted polymer brush, 1--butyl-3-vinyl imidazolium bromide-based poly(ionic liquids), is able to reduce the interfacial friction by up to 66% and 42% in dodecane and water, respectively. AFM-based force spectroscopy reveals that the polymer brush adopts distinctively different interfacial conformations: swollen in water but collapsed in dodecane. Minimal surface adhesion was observed with both polymer conformations, which can be attributed to steric repulsion as the result of a swollen conformation in water or surface solvation when the hydrophobic fraction of the polymer was exposed to the dodecane.

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