Sorption of ionic surfactants to estuarine sediment and their influence on the sequestration of phenanthrene.

The sorption of an anionic surfactant (sodium dodecyl sulfate; SDS) and a cationic surfactant (hexadecyl trimethylammonium bromide; HDTMA) to estuarine sediment has been studied in river water and seawater. Sorption isotherms for SDS were essentially linear in both waters, suggesting a nonspecific, hydrophobic interaction between the SDS tail and particle surface. Sorption of HDTMA was considerably greater, more nonlinear, and more sensitive to water composition. These observations were attributed to a combination of both electrostatic and hydrophobic interactions between the surfactant and particle surface, the formation of admicelles, and salinity-induced structural alteration of the hydrophobic tail of the HDTMA molecule. Presence of SDS caused a reduction in the sorption of phenanthrene to estuarine sediment because of the competitive effects of the surfactant tail for hydrophobic sorption sites on the particle surface. Conversely, the presence of HDTMA caused significant enhancement in phenanthrene sequestration because of head-on sorption of surfactant molecules and a resulting, more hydrophobic particle surface. The most persistent feature of our results was an inverse dependence of unit sorption on particle concentration, and an empirical algorithm defining the effect was used to calculate the sediment-water fractionation of realistic concentrations of reactants in the estuarine water column. The results of these calculations, and the more general findings of this study, significantly improve our understanding of both the transport and fate of ionic surfactants in the estuarine environment, and the effects that these surfactants have on the partitioning of hydrophobic organic micropollutants.