Effect of inorganic positive ions on the adsorption of surfactant Triton X-100 at quartz/solution interface

The electrode-separated piezoelectric sensor (ESPS), an improved setup of quartz crystal microbalance (QCM), has been employed to investigate the adsorption behavior of nonionic surfactant Triton X-100 at the hydrophilic quartz-solution interface in mineralized water medium in situ, which contained CaCl₂ 0.01 mol·L⁻¹, MgCl₂ 0.01 mol·L⁻¹, NaCl 0.35 mol·L⁻¹. In a large scale of surfactant concentration, t effects of Ca²⁺, Mg²⁺ and Na⁺ on the adsorption isotherm and kinetics are obviously different. In aqueous solution containing NaCl only, adsorption of Triton X-100 on quartz-solution interface is promoted, both adsorption rate and adsorption amount increase. While in mineralized water medium, multivalent positive ions Ca²⁺ and Mg²⁺ are firmly adsorbed on quartz-solution interface, result in the increasing of adsorption rate and adsorption amount at low concentration of surfactant and the peculiar desorption of surfactant at high concentration of Triton X-100. The results got by solution depletion method are in good agreement with which obtained by ESPS. The “bridge” and “separate” effect of inorganic positive ions on the adsorption and desorption mechanism of Triton X-100 at the quartz-solution interface is discussed with molecular dynamics simulations (MD), flame atomic absorption spectrometry (FAAS) and atomic force microscopy (AFM) methods. Supported by the Key Project of SINOPEC (Grant No. P04049) and the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 29903006)