Journal of Physical Chemistry B. 108 , 15443-15445 (2004)

Influence of surface tension on adsorbate molecular rotation at iiquid/iiquid interfaces

A. W. Hill and I. Benjamin

Department of Chemistry, University of California, Santa Cruz, California 95064

Molecular Dynamics computer simulations of a series of liquid/liquid interfaces with variable surface tension and fixed bulk viscosity are used to study the effect of the liquid surface on the rotational correlation time of a molecular solute adsorbed at the interface. We observed a remarkable attenuating effect on the rotational dynamics as the surface tension is reduced and show that the origin of the effect is a local density gap. This gives rise to a local effective viscosity, which increases as the surface tension is decreased.