Colloidally stable dispersions

Claim 1

A colloidal dispersion containing as the surfactant material a stabilizing amount of a noncopolymerizable substantially linear interpolymeric interfacially spreading polyelectrolyte in both the disperse and continuous phase of said dispersion wherein: 1. said polyelectrolyte is composed of a mixture of nonionic hydrophobic units and ionic hydrophilic units wherein said nonionic hydrophobic units are copolymerized ethylenically unsaturated monomers which when in the form of amorphous homopolymers are less than about 0.1 percent soluble in water and wherein said monomer has no substituent extending more than about 10 Angstrom units from the point of ethylenic unsaturation said units being randomly distributed in the backbone of said polyelectrolyte and wherein said ionic hydrophilic units are copolymerized ethylenically unsaturated ionic monomers which when in the form of amorphous homopolymers are soluble in water and wherein said ionic hydrophilic units remain substantially completely ionized over the entire pH range of 0 to 14, 2. said polyelectrolyte is adsorbed at said disperse phase in a substantially flat configuration and where the area occupied by each ionic hydrophilic unit of said polyelectrolyte at the disperse phase surface is from about 60 to 100 square Angstrom units per hydrophilic unit, and 3. said polyelectrolyte has an adsorption constant equal to or greater than 1 at the point where the disperse phase is saturated with said polyelectrolyte wherein said adsorption constant is determined as the amount of polyelectrolyte in said disperse phase divided by the amount of polyelectrolyte in said continuous phase.