Co-adsorption of surfactants and water at inorganic solid surfaces

Abstract

Computer simulations of the co-adsorption of water and methanoic acid at a range of surface features of calcite and fluorite minerals have shown that the relative adsorption energies for the two minerals are reversed when solvent effects are included in the calculations, a finding which is important in the search for effective surfactant reagents in flotation techniques, which are used extensively in the mining and pharmaceutical industries and in environmental remediation processes.