{"term":{"id":"00302","title":"amphipathic","longtitle":"IUPAC Gold Book - amphipathic","doi":"10.1351\/goldbook.A00302","code":"A00302","status":"current","definitions":[{"id":1,"text":"The property of surface activity is usually due to the fact that the molecules of the substance are amphipathic or amphiphilic, meaning that each contains both a hydrophilic and a hydrophobic (lipophilic) group. This assumes that one of the two phases is aqueous, and the other non-aqueous. If both are non-aqueous (e.g. oil\/air), molecules containing organophilic and organophobic groups may be amphipathic and surface active.","links":[{"term":"amphiphilic","url":"https:\/\/goldbook.iupac.org\/terms\/view\/A00303"},{"term":"hydrophilic","url":"https:\/\/goldbook.iupac.org\/terms\/view\/H02906"},{"term":"lipophilic","url":"https:\/\/goldbook.iupac.org\/terms\/view\/L03572"}],"sources":["PAC, 1972, 31, 577. 'Manual of Symbols and Terminology for Physicochemical Quantities and Units, Appendix II: Definitions, Terminology and Symbols in Colloid and Surface Chemistry' on page 612 (https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1351\/pac197231040577)"]}],"altoutputs":{"html":"https:\/\/goldbook.iupac.org\/terms\/view\/A00302\/html","xml":"https:\/\/goldbook.iupac.org\/terms\/view\/A00302\/xml","plain":"https:\/\/goldbook.iupac.org\/terms\/view\/A00302\/plain"},"citation":"Citation: 'amphipathic' in IUPAC Compendium of Chemical Terminology, 5th ed. International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry; 2025. Online version 5.0.0, 2025. 10.1351\/goldbook.A00302","license":"The IUPAC Gold Book is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike CC BY-SA 4.0 International (https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by-sa\/4.0\/) for individual terms.","collection":"If you are interested in licensing the Gold Book for commercial use, please contact the IUPAC Executive Director at executivedirector@iupac.org .","disclaimer":"The International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC) is continuously reviewing and, where needed, updating terms in the Compendium of Chemical Terminology (the IUPAC Gold Book). Users of these terms are encouraged to include the version of a term with its use and to check regularly for updates to term definitions that you are using.","accessed":"2026-08-09T08:32:42+00:00"}}