Abstract
Surfactants are among the most relevant organic pollutants of water with threatening potential for the aquatic environment. The most common and widespread techniques to detect surfactants in water samples are typically expensive and time consuming. In this context, we propose a new kind of optical sensor, based on an amorphous fluorinated plastic iso-refractive to water and, therefore, barely visible in aqueous solutions. When a thin molecular layer with a different refractive index adsorbs at the interface, the intensity of reflected or scattered light markedly increases, hence enabling a simple and real-time detection. We investigated the interaction between the plastic iso-refractive to water and a non-ionic surfactant (Tween 20) by measuring the intensity of light reflected by a planar interface as a function of time after the addition of different concentrations of surfactant. This detection scheme has been also tested with natural water samples taken from the Lambro river across the city of Milan.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
References
World Health Organization, Linear alkylbenzenesulfates and related compounds; (Environmental Health Criteria 169, Geneve, 1996), 8.
S. Paria, K. C. Khilar, A review on experimental studies of surfactant adsorption at the hydrophilic solid–water interface Adv. Colloid. Interfac., 110 (3), pp 75–95, (2004)
F. Giavazzi, M. Salina, R. Cerbino, M. Bassi, D. Prosperi, E. Ceccarello, F. Damin, L. Sola, M. Rusnati, M. Chiari, B. Chini, T. Bellini, M. Buscaglia, Multispot, label-free biodetection at a phantom plastic–water interface PNAS USA 110 (23), pp 9350–9355, (2013)
A. Ghetta, D. Prosperi, F. Mantegazza, L. Panza, S. Riva, T. Bellini, Light scattered by model phantom bacteria reveals molecular interactions at their surface PNAS, 102, pp 15866–15870, (2005)
D. Prosperi, C. Morasso, F. Mantegazza, M. Buscaglia, L. Hough, T. Bellini, Phantom Nanoparticles as Probes of Biomolecular Interactions Small, 2, pp 1060–1067, (2006)
L. Shen, A. Guo, X. Zhu. Tween surfactants: adsorption, self-organization and protein resistance. Surf. Sci. 605, 494–499, (2011)
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2015 Springer International Publishing Switzerland
About this paper
Cite this paper
Lanfranco, R., Giavazzi, F., Salina, M., Di Nicolò, E., Buscaglia, M. (2015). Optical Detection of Surfactants by Means of Reflective Phantom Interface Method. In: Compagnone, D., Baldini, F., Di Natale, C., Betta, G., Siciliano, P. (eds) Sensors. Lecture Notes in Electrical Engineering, vol 319. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-09617-9_7
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-09617-9_7
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-09616-2
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-09617-9
eBook Packages: EngineeringEngineering (R0)