text: Microemulsions have many commercially important uses:
  * Water-in-oil microemulsions for some dry cleaning processes
  * Floor polishers and cleaners
  * Personal care products
  * Pesticide formulations
  * Cutting oils
  * Drugs
  Much of the work done on these systems have been motivated by their possible use to mobilize petroleum trapped in porous sandstone for enhanced oil recovery. A fundamental reason for the uses of these systems is that a microemulsion phase sometimes has an ultralow interfacial tension with a separate oil or aqueous phase, which may release or mobilize them from solid phases even in conditions of slow flow or low pressure gradients.
  Microemulsions also have industrial applications, one of them being the synthesis of polymers. Microemulsion polymerization is a complex heterogeneous process where transport of monomers, free radicals and other species (such as chain transfer agent, co-surfactant and inhibitors) between the aqueous and organic phases, takes place. Compared with other heterogeneous polymerization processes (suspension or emulsion) microemulsion polymerization is a more complicated system. Polymerization rate is controlled by monomer partitioning between the phases, particle nucleation, and adsorption and desorption of radicals. Particle stability is affected by the amount and type of surfactant and pH of dispersing medium.
  It is also used in the process of creating nanoparticles.
  The kinetics of microemulsion polymerization has much in common with emulsion polymerization kinetics, the most characteristic feature of which is the compartmentalization, where the radicals growing inside the particles are separated from each other, thus suppressing termination to a high extent and, as a consequence, providing high rates of polymerization.