Applications of Luminescence Spectroscopy to Studies of Colloid-Solution Interfaces

Abstract

There has been a growing interest in the fields of colloid chemistry, surface chemistry, and soil chemistry, in the use of physical methods to study chemical reactions at colloid-solution interfaces. Ideally these methods should be noninvasive, sensitive, and require minimal sample pretreatment. Luminescence spectroscopy meets these criteria and has been used extensively in studies of both organic and inorganic colloidal systems. Typically, luminescent probe molecules are introduced at low concentrations into interfacial regions of interest. These molecules can then report back to the spectroscopist on the nature of their surrounding chemical environment. Such experiments have provided detailed information on interfacial solvent polarities, ground-state and excited-state complex formation on colloid surfaces, molecular distributions of adsorbed species, and the configurations and relative mobilities of molecules in interfacial regions. One can obtain this wealth of information from many synthetic and natural systems of interest.