The well-known effect of the retardation of evaporation by monolayers of surfactants has been investigated by laser interferometry and the appropriate conventional apparatus. The temperature drop caused by evaporation has been calibrated for several surfactants in general use for conserving reservoir waters and for lecithins considered to be part of living membranes. Rate of ingress of oxygen has been treated in the same way. The best performance was about 60% retardation of evaporation for the molecules that pack well. The behaviour for O2 ingress retardation was very similar. The lecithins were suitably permeable to be able to act as a bilamellar layer cell membrane.
Layer-by-layer cell membrane assembly