Effect of alkyl chain length on the conformation and order of simple ionic surfactants adsorbed at the D2O/CCl4 interface as studied by sum-frequency vibrational spectroscopy

The conformational order of three alkanesulfonates, sodium hexanesulfonate (HS), sodium undecanesulfonate (UDS), and sodium dodecanesulfonate (DDS), adsorbed at the D2O/CCl4 interface are examined in detail by sum-frequency vibrational spectroscopy. An increase in surfactant concentration at the interface results in the reduction of gauche defects in the hydrocarbon chains as determined from the intensity ratio of the methyl to methylene symmetric stretch vibrational modes. The degree of disorder in the alkyl chains varies greatly with alkyl chain length. The alkyl chain of HS displays the fewest gauche defects while DDS and UDS display more disorder in their hydrocarbon chains at similar surface concentrations. This observation is interpreted as a reduction in the possible number of gauche conformations for the shorter alkyl chain.