surfactant

English

Etymology

Blend of surface-active +‎ agent.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /səɹˈfæktənt/

• Audio (US):

  (file)

Noun

surfactant (plural surfactants)

1. (chemistry) A surface-active agent, or wetting agent, capable of reducing the surface tension of a liquid; typically organic compounds having a hydrophilic “head” and a hydrophobic “tail”.

   Synonym: tenside

   • 2023 December 6, Jessica DeFino, “Too Many Products Can Stress Out Your Skin. Here’s How to Scale Back.”, in The New York Times‎^[1]:

     Dr. Khorana added that this is especially true of cleansers that feature surfactants like sodium lauryl sulfate, as this class of ingredients can cause “dryness, irritation and eczema.”

2. (biochemistry) A lipoprotein in the tissues of the lung that reduces surface tension and permits more efficient gas transport.
   • 2015 November 25, “Expression and Localization of Lung Surfactant Proteins in Human Testis”, in PLOS ONE‎^[2], →DOI:

     It is conceivable that impairment of surfactant proteins is due to rheological and immunodefensive disorders of testis and epididymis or prostate.

Derived terms

• biosurfactant
• cosurfactant
• fluorosurfactant
• nonsurfactant
• prosurfactant
• surfactantless

Translations

surface active agent

• Arabic: عَامِل سَطْحِيّ (ʕāmil saṭḥiyy)
• Bulgarian: повърхностно-акти́вно вещество́ n (povǎrhnostno-aktívno veštestvó)
• Chinese:

  Mandarin: 表面活性劑 / 表面活性剂 (zh) (biǎomiàn huóxìngjì), 界面活性劑 / 界面活性剂 (jièmiàn huóxìngjì)

• Czech: tenzid (cs) m, surfaktant m
• Finnish: tensidi (fi), pinta-aktiivinen aine, surfaktantti (fi)
• French: tensioactif (fr), mouillant (fr), surfactant (fr), surfactif (fr)
• German: Tensid (de) n, Netzmittel n, Benetzungsmittel n, Dispergiermittel n, Detergens (de) n, grenzflächenaktiver Stoff m
• Italian: tensioattivo (it) m, surfattante (it), surfactante (it)
• Japanese: 界面活性剤 (かいめんかっせいざい, kaimen-kasseizai)
• Kazakh: беттік-активті заттек (bettık-aktivtı zattek)
• Korean: 계면활성제(界面活性劑) (gyemyeonhwalseongje)
• Persian: ماده فعال سطحی
• Portuguese: surfactante (pt), tensioativo, tensoativo
• Russian: пове́рхностно-акти́вное вещество́ (ru) n (povérxnostno-aktívnoje veščestvó)
• Slovene: omočilo
• Spanish: surfactante (es), tensoactivo, tensioactivo
• Swedish: tensid (sv), surfaktant (sv)
• Thai: สารลดแรงตึงผิว (sǎan-lót-rɛɛng-dtʉng-pǐu)
• Turkish: sürfektan
• Vietnamese: chất hoạt động bề mặt

lipoprotein that facilitates gas transport in the lungs

• Finnish: surfaktantti (fi)
• Japanese: 肺表面活性物質 (はいひょうめんかっせいぶっしつ, hai-hyōmen-kassei-busshitsu)
• Swedish: surfaktant (sv) c
• Turkish: sürfektan