TU Darmstadt / ULB / TUprints

Reflectometry Reveals Accumulation of Surfactant Impurities at Bare Oil/Water Interfaces

Scoppola, Ernesto ; Micciulla, Samantha ; Kuhrts, Lucas ; Maestro, Armando ; Campbell, Richard A. ; Konovalov, Oleg V. ; Fragneto, Giovanna ; Schneck, Emanuel (2022)
Reflectometry Reveals Accumulation of Surfactant Impurities at Bare Oil/Water Interfaces.
In: Molecules, 2022, 24 (22)
doi: 10.26083/tuprints-00015737
Article, Secondary publication, Publisher's Version

[img]
Preview
Text
molecules-24-04113.pdf
Copyright Information: CC BY 4.0 International - Creative Commons, Attribution.

Download (1MB) | Preview
Item Type: Article
Type of entry: Secondary publication
Title: Reflectometry Reveals Accumulation of Surfactant Impurities at Bare Oil/Water Interfaces
Language: English
Date: 2022
Place of Publication: Darmstadt
Year of primary publication: 2022
Publisher: MDPI
Journal or Publication Title: Molecules
Volume of the journal: 24
Issue Number: 22
Collation: 16 Seiten
DOI: 10.26083/tuprints-00015737
Corresponding Links:
Origin: Secondary publication DeepGreen
Abstract:

Bare interfaces between water and hydrophobic media like air or oil are of fundamental scientific interest and of great relevance for numerous applications. A number of observations involving water/hydrophobic interfaces have, however, eluded a consensus mechanistic interpretation so far. Recent theoretical studies ascribe these phenomena to an interfacial accumulation of charged surfactant impurities in water. In the present work, we show that identifying surfactant accumulation with X-ray reflectometry (XRR) or neutron reflectometry (NR) is challenging under conventional contrast configurations because interfacial surfactant layers are then hardly visible. On the other hand, both XRR and NR become more sensitive to surfactant accumulation when a suitable scattering length contrast is generated by using fluorinated oil. With this approach, significant interfacial accumulation of surfactant impurities at the bare oil/water interface is observed in experiments involving standard cleaning procedures. These results suggest that surfactant impurities may be a limiting factor for the investigation of fundamental phenomena involving water/hydrophobic interfaces.

Uncontrolled Keywords: X-ray reflectometry, neutron reflectometry, fluorocarbons, liquid/liquid interfaces
Status: Publisher's Version
URN: urn:nbn:de:tuda-tuprints-157375
Classification DDC: 500 Science and mathematics > 530 Physics
500 Science and mathematics > 540 Chemistry
Divisions: 05 Department of Physics > Institute for Condensed Matter Physics
Date Deposited: 09 Feb 2022 15:29
Last Modified: 06 Mar 2023 07:55
SWORD Depositor: Deep Green
URI: https://tuprints.ulb.tu-darmstadt.de/id/eprint/15737
PPN: 505481111
Export:
Actions (login required)
View Item View Item