Understanding the structures of liquid interfaces is of great importance as it involves prevalent chemical processes relevant to solvation, pharmacology, catalysis, and atmospheric chemistry. Glycerol, as a three-hydroxyl, low toxicity alcohol, is completely miscible with water and can also serve as an ideal protic solvent due to its hydrophilicity and hydrophobicity. Knowledge of how ions are distributed and interact in the glycerol interface allows us a better understanding of the behavior of ions in a non-aqueous liquid.Here we apply conventional and phase-sensitive vibrational sum frequency generation (PS-VSFG) spectroscopy to systematically investigate the organization of glycerol molecules and their interaction with halide ions at the air/glycerol interface. The PS-VSFG results indicate that glycerol molecules have a significantly different phase from water. In addition, halide ions have an effect on the glycerol orientation at the interface to different degrees.

Interfacial interaction of halide ions with glycerol molecules studied by phase-sensitive vibrational sum frequency generation spectroscopy

245th National Meeting (2013)

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