Integration or segregation: how do molecules behave at oil/water interfaces?

It has been over 250 years since Benjamin Franklin, fascinated with the wave-stilling effect of oil on water, performed his famous oil-drop experiments; nevertheless, the behavior of water molecules adjacent to hydrophobic surfaces continues to fascinate today. In the 18th century, the calming of the seas seemed the most pertinent application of such knowledge; today, we understand that oil-on-water phenomena underlie a range of important chemical, physical, and biological processes, including micelle and membrane formation, protein folding, chemical separation, oil extraction, nanoparticle formation, and interfacial polymerization. Beyond classical experiments of the oil-water interface, recent interest has focused on deriving a molecular-level picture of this interface or, more generally, of water molecules positioned next to any hydrophobic surface. This Account summarizes more than a decade's work from our laboratories aimed at understanding the nature of the hydrogen bonding occurring between water and a series of organic liquids in contact. Although the common perception is that water molecules and oil molecules positioned at the interface between the immiscible liquids want nothing to do with one another, we have found that weak interactions between these hydrophilic and hydrophobic molecules lead to interesting interfacial behavior, including highly oriented water molecules and layering of the organic medium that extends several molecular layers deep into the bulk organic liquid. For some organic liquids, penetration of oriented water into the organic layer is also apparent, facilitated by molecular interactions established at the molecularly thin region of first contact between the two liquids. The studies involve a combined experimental and computational approach. The primary experimental tool that we have used is vibrational sum frequency spectroscopy (VSFS), a powerful surface-specific vibrational spectroscopic method for measuring the molecular structures of aqueous surfaces. We have compared the results of these spectroscopic studies with our calculated VSF spectra derived from population densities and orientational distributions determined through molecular dynamics (MD) simulations. This combination of experiment and theory provides a powerful opportunity to advance our understanding of molecular processes at aqueous interfaces while also allowing us to test the validity of various molecular models commonly used to describe molecular structure and interactions at such interfaces.