Kinetics and Equilibrium of Solute Diffusion into Human Hair
July 2012
in “
Annals of biomedical engineering
”
TLDR Hair absorbs molecules differently based on their size, charge, and love for water, and less at higher pH; this can help make better hair products.
The study explored how five polyphenol molecules are absorbed by human hair, revealing that the uptake is influenced by the molecules' hydrophobicity and ionic charge, and decreases with higher pH levels. A theoretical model was developed to analyze the data, which indicated that the effective diffusion coefficient of solutes is affected by molecular size, binding affinity, and solute dissociation. The research proposed quantitative-structure-property-relationships (QSPR) models that successfully predicted the hair-water partition coefficient and the effective diffusion coefficient, suggesting that these models could be useful for understanding the adsorption properties of various materials. The study's findings are significant for the field of cosmetic science, particularly in the formulation of hair care products, but the number of hair samples used was not mentioned.
