CHE Professor Marjorie Longo’s PRF Annual Research Report Highlighted by ACS

Professor Marjorie Longo received the American Chemical Society (ACS) Petroleum Research Fund (PRF) New Directions (ND) Grant for her research involving surfactants and lipids. 

The grant gives Longo the opportunity to assemble a research team, explore a new research area and involve undergraduate and graduate students in her research, which involves measuring the changes in the mechanical properties of charged surfactant thin films as they add salt, oppositely charged surfactants, and interfaces.

“Very little historical measurements of mechanical properties of surfactant and lipid films exist, partially because most other measurement techniques require large amounts of material and they are not optimum for measuring properties of a nanometer-thin film,” she said.

Her PRF-funded research involves measuring the changes in the mechanical properties of charged surfactant thin films as they add salt, oppositely charged surfactants and interfaces. Her approach involves “applying force to the surfactant film, by the tip of an atomic force microscope, on a hard surface or, by aspirating with a micropipette, on a soft surface.”

In order to perform the research, she noted “we needed to revive our micropipette aspiration equipment, and I am grateful for PRF support to purchase the lab supplies necessary to achieve this.”