They proposed a system for injecting a surface-active agent (similar to a detergent) into the surface of a sonoluminescing bubble.

Several microorganisms are known to synthesise surface-active agents; most of them are bacteria and yeasts.

A surfactant, or surface-active agent, helps the resin foam and modifies the stickiness of the strands.

The first "true" emulsion polymerizations, which used a surface-active agent and polymerization initiator, were conducted in the 1920s to polymerize isoprene.

Surfactant-enhanced recovery injects surfactants (surface-active agents that are primary ingredient in soap and detergent) into contaminated groundwater.

Some preservatives are inactivated by non-ionic surface-active agents, others tend to be absorbed by plastic containers and so removed from the produce, while others may undergo degradation.

The main ingredients of the foam are surface-active agents like the wetting agents in hair conditioners, and oxidizing agents of the kinds used in toothpaste, including mixtures of sodium bicarbonate and hydrogen peroxide.

A fluorescent dye sensitive to X-rays could be bonded to the surface-active agent, they said, so that X-rays emitted by the gas in a bubble would not need to penetrate any water to excite the fluorescent chemical to emit visible light.