Over the last two decades, many kinds of environmentally responsive materials based on the chemical nature of gels and adsorption of surfactants at various interfaces are proposed. For the development of colloidal systems showing novel functionality we have designed various experimental systems for imaging the adsorption of surfactant at the interface between a nematic liquid crystal (LC) and water, self.propelling stimuli - responsive hydrogels and Janus particles. Optical textures changes produced by adsorption of a range of surfactants at the LC-water interface have been investigated using polarised and fluorescence microscopy to develop a novel sensor to detect various interfacial phenomena without requiring labelling of the analyte and the use of electroanalytical apparatus.