Reprinted with permission from J. Phys. Chem. Lett. 2020, 11, 11, 4436–4442. Copyright 2020 American Chemical Society.
J. Phys. Chem. Lett., 11, 11, 4436–4442 (2020)
DOI: 10.1021/acs.jpsclett.0c01091
Ion adsorption and transfer at aqueous interfaces are very important in various processes. However, the mechanism is complicated and not well understood since many driving forces play roles here. Combining nonlinear light scattering and surface X-ray scattering techniques, researchers from Argonne National Laboratory studied the rare earth ions adsorption at negatively charged surfaces with various anions in the solution. They discovered that specific anions can absorb to the surface and therefore enhance the cations adsorption when ion-specific effects dominate over electrostatic interactions.
Srikanth Nayak 1, Kaitlin Lovering 1, Wei Bu 2, and Ahmet Uysal*1
1 Chemical Sciences and Engineering Division, Argonne National Laboratory, Argonne, IL 60439, USA.
2 NSF’s ChemMatCARS, The University of Chicago, Chicago, IL 60637, USA.