Air interface

The oscillating jet method is not suitable for the study of liquid-air interfaces whose ages are in the range of tenths of a second, and an alternative method is based on the dependence of the shape of a falling column of liquid on its surface tension. Since the hydrostatic head, and hence the linear velocity, increases with h, the distance away from the nozzle, the cross-sectional area of the column must correspondingly decrease as a material balance requirement. The effect of surface tension is to oppose this shrinkage in cross section. The method is discussed in Refs. 110 and 111. A related method makes use of a falling sheet of liquid [112]. 

As an example, Tajima and co-workers [108] used labeling to obtain the adsorption of sodium dodecyl sulfate at the solution-air interface. The results, illustrated in Fig. Ill-12, agreed very well with the Gibbs equation in the form... 

Smith [113] studied the adsorption of n-pentane on mercury, determining both the surface tension change and the ellipsometric film thickness as a function of the equilibrium pentane pressure. F could then be calculated from the Gibbs equation in the form of Eq. ni-106, and from t. The agreement was excellent. Ellipsometry has also been used to determine the surface compositions of solutions [114,115], as well polymer adsorption at the solution-air interface [116]. 

We noted in Section VII-2B that, given the set of surface tension values for various crystal planes, the Wulff theorem allowed the construction of fhe equilibrium or minimum firee energy shape. This concept may be applied in reverse small crystals will gradually take on their equilibrium shape upon annealing near their melting point and likewise, small air pockets in a crystal will form equilibrium-shaped voids. The latter phenomenon offers the possible advantage that adventitious contamination of the solid-air interface is less likely. 

The speed of wetting has been measured by running a tape of material that is wetted either downward through the liquid-air interface, or upward through the interface. For a polyester tape and a glycerol-water mixture, a wetting speed of about 20 cm/sec and a dewetting speed of about 0.6 cm/sec has been reported [37]. Conversely, the time of rupture of thin films can be important (see Ref. 38). 

In the usual situation illustrated in Fig. XIII-6 the particle is supported at a liquid-air interface against gravitational attraction. As was seen, the restoring force... 

Clearly, it is important that there be a large contact angle at the solid particle-solution-air interface. Some minerals, such as graphite and sulfur, are naturally hydrophobic, but even with these it has been advantageous to add materials to the system that will adsorb to give a hydrophobic film on the solid surface. (Effects can be complicated—sulfur notability oscillates with the number of preadsoibed monolayers of hydrocarbons such as n-heptane [76].) The use of surface modifiers or collectors is, of course, essential in the case of naturally hydrophilic minerals such as silica. 

Thus, adding surfactants to minimize the oil-water and solid-water interfacial tensions causes removal to become spontaneous. On the other hand, a mere decrease in the surface tension of the water-air interface, as evidenced, say, by foam formation, is not a direct indication that the surfactant will function well as a detergent. The decrease in yow or ysw implies, through the Gibb s equation (see Section III-5) adsorption of detergent. 

Show that for the case of a liquid-air interface Eq. XIII-8 predicts that the distance a liquid has penetrated into a capillary increases with the square root of the time. 

Many complex systems have been spread on liquid interfaces for a variety of reasons. We begin this chapter with a discussion of the behavior of synthetic polymers at the liquid-air interface. Most of these systems are linear macromolecules however, rigid-rod polymers and more complex structures are of interest for potential optoelectronic applications. Biological macromolecules are spread at the liquid-vapor interface to fabricate sensors and other biomedical devices. In addition, the study of proteins at the air-water interface yields important information on enzymatic recognition, and membrane protein behavior. We touch on other biological systems, namely, phospholipids and cholesterol monolayers. These systems are so widely and routinely studied these days that they were also mentioned in some detail in Chapter IV. The closely related matter of bilayers and vesicles is also briefly addressed. 

The behavior of insoluble monolayers at the hydrocarbon-water interface has been studied to some extent. In general, a values for straight-chain acids and alcohols are greater at a given film pressure than if spread at the water-air interface. This is perhaps to be expected since the nonpolar phase should tend to reduce the cohesion between the hydrocarbon tails. See Ref. 91 for early reviews. Takenaka [92] has reported polarized resonance Raman spectra for an azo dye monolayer at the CCl4-water interface some conclusions as to orientation were possible. A mean-held theory based on Lennard-Jones potentials has been used to model an amphiphile at an oil-water interface one conclusion was that the depth of the interfacial region can be relatively large [93]. 

There is a fair amount of work reported with films at the mercury-air interface. Rice and co-workers [107] used grazing incidence x-ray diffraction to determine that a crystalline stearic acid monolayer induces order in the Hg substrate. Quinone derivatives spread at the mercury-n-hexane interface form crystalline structures governed primarily by hydrogen bonding interactions [108]. 

We now present one of the many examples of interfacial vibrational spectroscopy using SFG. Figure Bl.5.15 shows the surface vibrational spectrum of the water/air interface at a temperature of 40 °C [83]. Notice that... 

Figure Bl.5.15 SFG spectrum for the water/air interface at 40 °C using the ssp polarization combination (s-, s- and p-polarized sum-frequency signal, visible input and infrared input beams, respectively). The peaks correspond to OH stretching modes. (After [ ].)...

Rasing Th, Shen Y R, Kim M W, Valint P Jr and Bock J 1985 Orientation of surfactant molecules at a liquid-air interface measured by optical second-harmonic generation Phys. Rev. A 31 537-9... 

Figure Cl.5.4. Comparison of near-field and far-field fluorescence images, spectra and lifetimes for the same set of isolated single molecules of a carbocyanine dye at a PMMA-air interface. Note the much higher resolution of the near-field image. The spectmm and lifetime of the molecule indicated with the arrow were recorded with near-field excitation and with far-field excitation at two different excitation powers. Reproduced with pennission from Trautman and Macklin [125].

Mono- and multilayers may be fonned by the LB technique from polymers bearing both hydrophilic and hydrophobic side groups that are already spread as a polymer at the water-air interface. 

Anotlier metliod applicable to interfaces is tlie detennination of tlie partial molecular area (7 of a biopolynier partitioning into a lipid monolayer at tlie water-air interface using tlie Langmuir trough [28]. The first step is to record a series of pressure 71-area (A) isotlienns witli different amounts of an amphiphilic biopolynier spread at tlie interface. 

There are several internal gridwork arrangements, all designed to enhance splashing and film formation in order to give a large water—air interface... 

Sorption and Desorption Processes. Sorption is a generalized term that refers to surface-induced removal of the pesticide from solution it is the attraction and accumulation of pesticide at the sod—water or sod—air interface, resulting in molecular layers on the surface of sod particles. Experimentally, sorption is characterized by the loss of pesticide from the sod solution, making it almost impossible to distinguish between sorption in which molecular layers form on sod particle surfaces, precipitation in which either a separate soHd phase forms on soHd surfaces, covalent bonding with the sod particle surface, or absorption into sod particles or organisms. Sorption is generally considered a reversible equdibrium process. 

Langmuir-Blodgett was the first technique to provide a practical route for the constmction of ordered molecular assembhes. These monolayers, which provide design dexibiUty both at the individual molecular and at the material levels, are prepared at the water—air interface using a hiUy computerized trough (Fig. 1). Detailed discussions of troughs (4) and of surface pressure, 7T, and methods of surface pressure measurements are available (3,6). 

Monolayers at the Air—Water Interface. Molecules that form monolayers at the water—air interface are called amphiphiles or surfactants (qv). Such molecules are insoluble in water. One end is hydrophilic, and therefore is preferentially immersed in the water the other end is hydrophobic, and preferentially resides in the air, or in a nonpolar solvent. A classic example of an amphiphile is stearic acid, C H COOH, wherein the long hydrocarbon... 

The monolayer resulting when amphiphilic molecules are introduced to the water—air interface was traditionally called a two-dimensional gas owing to what were the expected large distances between the molecules. However, it has become quite clear that amphiphiles self-organize at the air—water interface even at relatively low surface pressures (7—10). For example, x-ray diffraction data from a monolayer of heneicosanoic acid spread on a 0.5-mM CaCl2 solution at zero pressure (11) showed that once the barrier starts moving and compresses the molecules, the surface pressure, 7T, increases and the area per molecule, M, decreases. The surface pressure, ie, the force per unit length of the barrier (in N/m) is the difference between CJq, the surface tension of pure water, and O, that of the water covered with a monolayer. Where the total number of molecules and the total area that the monolayer occupies is known, the area per molecules can be calculated and a 7T-M isotherm constmcted. This isotherm (Fig. 2), which describes surface pressure as a function of the area per molecule (3,4), is rich in information on stabiUty of the monolayer at the water—air interface, the reorientation of molecules in the two-dimensional system, phase transitions, and conformational transformations. 

LB films of 1,4,8,11,15,18-hexaoctyl-22,25-bis-(carboxypropyl)-phthalocyanine (2), an asymmetrically substituted phthalocyanine, were stable monolayers formed at the water—air interface that could be transferred onto hydrophilic siUca substrates (32—34). When a monolayer film of the phthalocyanine derivative was heated, there was a remarkable change in the optical spectmm. This, by comparison to the spectmm of the bulk material, indicated a phase transition from the low temperature herringbone packing, to a high temperature hexagonal packing. 

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