Structure of adsorbed layers of mixtures of proteins and surfactants

Over the past 5 years, considerable progress has been made in the understanding of the way in which surfactants can displace proteins from an interface. In particular, phase separation of the two interfacial components has been observed, both directly and indirectly by a range of techniques. While differences have been seen in the precise nature of the phase separation for different classes of surfactant, the overall mechanism appears to be the same. Over the same period, various theoretical approaches have allowed us to start to describe the formation of an interfacial layer in terms of an equation of state. Also, the driving forces required to form the phase-separated structures have been studied by Brownian dynamics.