Probing the adsorption of nonionic micelles on different-sized nanoparticles by scattering techniques

The interaction of nanoparticles with surfactants is extensively used in a wide range of applications from enhancing colloidal stability to phase separation processes as well as in the synthesis of noble functional materials. The interaction is highly specific depending on the charged nature of the surfactant. In the case of nonionic surfactants, the micelles adsorb on the surface of nanoparticles. The adsorption of nonionic surfactant C12E10 as a function of surfactant concentration for two different sizes of anionic silica nanoparticles (16 and 27 nm) has been examined using dynamic light scattering (DLS) and small-angle neutron scattering (SANS). SANS measurements have been carried out under different contrast-matched conditions, where nanoparticles, as well as surfactant micelles, have been contrast-matched to the solvent. The adsorption of micelles is determined from the contrast-matched condition of silica nanoparticles with the solvent. SANS data under surfactant contrast-matched condition suggest that there is no modification in the structure and/or interaction of the silica nanoparticles in presence of nonionic micelles. The adsorption of micelles on nanoparticles is found to follow an exponential behavior with respect to the surfactant concentration. These results are consistent with the variation of hydrodynamic size of nanoparticle-surfactant system in DLS. The study on different-sized nanoparticles shows that the lower curvature enhances the packing fraction whereas the loss of surface-to-volume ratio suppresses the fraction of adsorbed micelles with the increase in the nanoparticle size. The adsorption coefficient has higher value for the larger size of the nanoparticles. In the mixed system of two sizes of nanoparticles, no preferential selectivity of micelle adsorption is observed.