Anionic surfactant – Biogenic amine interactions: The role of surfactant headgroup geometry

Oligoamines and biogenic amines (naturally occurring oligoamines) are small flexible polycations. They interact strongly with anionic surfactants such as sodium dodecyl sulfate, SDS. This results in enhanced adsorption and the formation of layered structures and the formation of layered structures at the air–water interface which depends on surfactant concentration and solution pH. The effect of changing the surfactant headgroup geometry on that interaction and subsequent adsorption is reported here. Neutron reflectivity, NR, results for the surface adsorption of the anionic surfactant sodium diethylene glycol monododecyl ether sulfate, SLES, with the biogenic amine, spermine, are presented, and contrasted with previous data for SDS/spermine mixtures. The enhancement in the adsorption of the surfactant at the air–water interface where monolayer adsorption occurs is similar for both surfactants. However the regions of surfactant concentration and solution pH where surface multilayer adsorption occurs is less extensive for the SLES/spermine mixtures, and occurs only at low pH. The results show how changing the headgroup geometry by the introduction of the ethylene oxide linker group between the alkyl chain and sulfate headgroup modifies the polyamine – surfactant interaction. The increased steric constraint from the polyethylene oxide group disrupts the conditions for surface multilayer formation at the higher pH values. This has important consequences for applications where the modification or manipulation of the surface properties are required.

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