Uptake and release of anionic surfactant into and from cationic core-shell microgel particles

Core-shell microgel particles, in the colloidal size range, have been prepared and characterized, where the core and the shell are both copolymers, based on N-isopropylacrylamide, but where the core and shell contain different pH-responsive groups having widely separated acid dissociation constants (pKa). The core contains vinylpyridine (VP), which has a pKa value of 4.92, and the shell contains 2-(dimethylamino)ethyl methacrylate (DMAEM), which has a pKa value of 8.4. The dispersion properties, and the uptake and release of an anionic surfactant, sodium dodecylbenzenesulfonate (SDBS), have been studied for both the core and the core-shell microgel particles as a function of pH changes. Both the core and the core-shell particles have been shown to swell as the pH decreases over the range from 7 to 3. However, despite the large differences in the pKa values of the VP and DMEAM groups, no distinct steps in the swelling ratio-pH curve for the core-shell particles were observed, and it is postulated that the boundary between the core and shell regions may be somewhat extended, rather than sharp. The uptake of the anionic surfactant SDBS has been shown to depend on two distinct attractive interactions between the surfactant molecules and the microgel particles: electrostatic and hydrophobic. A reasonable correlation between the minimum in the particle diameter, for both the core and the core-shell particles, and the point of charge neutralization, in the presence of SDBS, has been established.