Micellar Aggregation Behavior and Electrochemically Reversible Solubilization of a Redox-Active Nonionic Surfactant

Abstract

For the purpose of studying the potential of a novel nonionic switchable surfactant, 11-ferrocenylundecyl polyoxyethylene ether (FPEG), applied to surfactant-enhanced remediation (SER), the surface properties and micelle solubilization behavior of FPEG were investigated with different inorganic salts. With the addition of inorganic salts (NaCl and CaCl2), the critical micelle concentration (CMC) of FPEG dropped from 15 to 12 and 8 mg·L−1, respectively, due to the salting-out effect on the alkyl chain. Thermodynamic parameters based on the CMCs indicated that micelle formation was an entropy-driven process. Dynamic light scattering measurements verified that these inorganic salts can decrease the hydrodynamic diameters (D h) of the micelles. Solubilization experiments with three typical polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) demonstrated that the system of FPEG with NaCl shows the highest solubilization ability, and the molar solubilization ratio and micelle–water partition coefficient (K m ) values follow the order pyrene > phenanthrene > acenaphthene. After oxidation, PAHs can be released from the micelles through breaking up of the micelles, and the cumulative release efficiency of pyrene, phenanthrene and acenaphthene are 31.2, 42.8 and 44.6 %; the order of release efficiency is opposite to that of the reduced form for solubilization abilities. All the results suggest that the ferrocene-containing, redox-active surfactant FPEG has the potential to be recycled in SER technology through electrochemistry approaches.