Abstract
Pulmonary surfactant was removed from the lungs of rabbits by bronchial lavage and then purified by a foam fractionation procedure. Surfactant films were adsorbed on the surface of buffered saline and a dipping plate and electrobalance were used to measure the changes in surface tension as the film areas were increased at known rates. The resulting data were used to compute the coefficient of dilatational viscosity of each film. It was found that the dilatational viscosity of the films decreased as their surfactant concentration was increased. Increasing the temperature over the range 25–41°C produced a modest increase in the viscosity but altering the subphase pH had no significant effect. These findings help to elucidate certain aspects of the behaviour of pulmonary surfactant films.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.