Adsorption of non-ionic surfactants on hydrophobic and hydrophilic carbon surfaces

The adsorption from aqueous solutions of a series of non-ionic surfactants (TX-114, TX-100, TX-165 and TX-305, where the ethoxylation degree is increasing in the series) on a non-microporous carbon surface, that is a high surface area graphite (GT), and on a mainly microporous activated carbon (NT) has been comparatively studied. Also the initially hydrophobic GT and NT surfaces have been modified by oxidation treatments in order to achieve partially hydrophilic carbon materials (GTox and NTox samples). The adsorption results reveal that for GT sample below the critical micellar concentrations (cmc) of surfactants practically the whole surface is covered by monomers. For NT there are steric hindrance limitations, so the surfactant molecules are adsorbed only on micropores of sizes larger than 8A. When oxygen surface groups are introduced on the carbonaceous surfaces, the adsorption behaviour is again different for both materials. Thus, for GTox the adsorbed amounts below the cmc decrease probably due to withdrawal effect of the oxygen surface groups. On the contrary, the adsorbed amounts above the cmc slightly increase with regard to bare graphite, possibly due to an improved formation of micelles. In the case of NTox the adsorbed uptakes below and above cmc increase remarkably in comparison with NT sample, which can be explained by some specific interactions of the surfactants molecules with oxygen surface groups inside the micropores.