Silica nanoparticle sols. Part 3: Monitoring the state of agglomeration at the air/water interface using the Langmuir-Blodgett technique.
Langmuir-Blodgett films were prepared at the air/water interface from dispersions of hydrophilic and partially, hydrophobically modified industrially manufactured silica nanoparticles. The hydrophilic particles featured expanded, fairly easily compressible, surface pressure (pi)-area (A) isotherms with well defined collapse pressures which appeared to be caused by the formation of loosely structured agglomerates which exhibited elastic behavior at low surface pressure and inelastic behavior at high surface pressure. Lateral electrostatic interparticle interactions seemingly played an important role in this hydrophilic system. This contrasted with the hydrophobically modified particles which were more difficult to disperse in the ethanol/chloroform spreading solvent and appeared to be in the semi-agglomerated state at low surface pressures and exhibited a more difficult to compress compacted film. Both types of particulate films were shown to be sensitive to the spreading environment and changes in pH were found to increase particle agglomeration which drastically reduced the particulate area for the hydrophilic sol but less so, in the case of the moderately hydrophobically modified sol. In general, the LB technique proved to be a useful method to monitor changes in the state of aggregation of nanosized silica particles at the air/water interface. These results also appear to give some support of our ideas, presented in earlier publications in which it was suggested that the major role of the hydrophobically modified hydrophilic particles in foaming was to produce an aggregated particulate film surrounding the air/water interface which provides a physical barrier preventing coalescence of bubbles.