This book describes in detail the scientific philosophy of the formation and stabilization-destabilization of foams. It presents all hierarchical steps of a foam, starting from the properties of adsorption layers formed by foaming agents, discussing the properties of foam films as the building blocks of a foam, and then describing details of real foams, including many fields of application. The information presented in the book is useful to people working on the formulation of foams or attempting to avoid or destruct foams in unwanted situations.

The present book “Foam Films and Foams: Fundamentals and Applications,” is Volume 7 of the book series “Progress in Colloid and Interface Science.” It is dedicated to one of the most complex topics in colloid and interface science—liquid foams. From a practical point of view, foams are well known by everyone, and we are in contact with foam every day. However, complete understanding of foam formation and its subsequent stabilization or destabilization is not yet fully understood.

As will be shown in this book, foams are hierarchical systems. A top-down approach shows that it consists of many foam bubbles in contact with each other, forming liquid flms in between. On either side of such a foam flm, there is an adsorption layer self-assembled by surfactants or polymers or their mixtures. Hence, the properties of these adsorption layers and the properties of the respective liquid flms control the formation and stability of the resulting foam.

This book represents the state of the art of the fundamentals of foam flms and foams together with a comprehensive description of the corresponding adsorption layers, and discusses important aspects in various practical applications. The starting point is adsorption layers formed by surfactants, polymers, and their mixtures. They are the basic elements of foam flms formed at the two flm sides.

Today, we cannot yet say which of the many adsorption layer properties are the most decisive ones for stabilizing a foam flm. However, what is very clear is the need of an adsorption layer for the stabilization of a foam flm, which otherwise would immediately rupture. In turn, a foam would never exist if the bubbles, their building blocks, were not stabilized against coalescence.

The present book aims at presenting the entire philosophy of the formation and stabilization of foam and discusses the most recent state of the art of each level of its hierarchy. The correlations of properties between adsorption layers and flms and also between flms and foam are the center of interest. The fnal list of applications demonstrates how important this fundamental knowledge is for the production of foams for various modern technologies or practical felds.

The present book appears 20 years after a book with a similar title, “Foam and Foam Films”, written by D. Exerowa and P. Kruglyakov, published by Elsevier in 1998. In a sense, the present book is its successor; however, it should be underlined that the present book is a completely new book, written by a number of authors.