Effects of anionic surfactants on ligand-promoted dissolution of iron and aluminum hydroxides

We investigated the influence of the surfactants sodium dodecyl sulfate (SDS) and rhamnolipid (RhL) on ligand-promoted dissolution of goethite (alpha-FeOOH) and boehmite (gamma-AlOOH) at pH 6. The siderophore desferrioxamine B (DFOB), its derivate desferrioxamine D (DFOD), ethylenediaminetetraacetic acid (EDTA), and 8-hydroxyquinoline-5-sulfonic acid (HQS) were used as ligands. The rates of ligand-promoted dissolution of goethite were significantly increased in the presence of low concentrations of anionic surfactants (<80 microM SDS; <6 mg/L RhL). At higher surfactant concentrations, however, the effects of surfactants were negligible. The dissolution rates in the presence of surfactants were not correlated with adsorbed amounts of ligands. Three possible factors contributing to these observations were further investigated and discussed: (i) adsorbed surfactants may influence ligand adsorption by changes in the ligand's surface speciation, (ii) re-adsorption of Fe-DFOB or Fe-DFOD complexes may lead to an underestimation of siderophore-promoted dissolution rates at high surfactant concentrations, and (iii) co-adsorption of protons to goethite with SDS may influence the dissolution rates. However, our results show that none of these three factors can satisfactorily explain the observed effects of anionic surfactants on ligand-promoted dissolution rates of iron and aluminum hydroxides.