Silica micro-and nanoparticles reduce the toxicity of surfactant solutions Ríos Ruiz, Francisco Fernández Arteaga, Alejandro Fernández Serrano, Mercedes Jurado Alameda, Encarnación Lechuga Villena, Manuela María Silica nanoparticles Toxicity Nonionic surfactants In this work, the toxicity of hydrophilic fumed silica microand nanoparticles of various sizes (7 nm, 12 nm, and 50 μm) was evaluated using the luminescent bacteria Vibrio fischeri. In addition, the toxicity of an anionic surfactant solution (ether carboxylic acid), a nonionic surfactant solution (alkyl polyglucoside), and a binary (1:1) mixture of these solutions all containing these silica particles was evaluated. Furthermore, this work discusses the adsorption of surfactants onto particle surfaces and evaluates the effects of silica particles on the surface tension and critical micellar concentration (CMC) of these anionic and nonionic surfactants. It was determined that silica particles can be considered as non-toxic and that silica particles reduce the toxicity of surfactant solutions. Nevertheless, the toxicity reduction depends on the ionic character of the surfactants. Differences can be explained by the different adsorption behavior of surfactants onto the particle surface, which is weaker for nonionic surfactants than for anionic surfactants. Regarding the effects on surface tension, it was found that silica particles increased the surface activity of anionic surfactants and considerably reduced their CMC, whereas in the case of nonionic surfactants, the effects were reversed. 2024-02-01T07:41:40Z 2024-02-01T07:41:40Z 2018 info:eu-repo/semantics/article https://hdl.handle.net/10481/87846 10.1016/j.jhazmat.2018.04.040 eng http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ info:eu-repo/semantics/embargoedAccess Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 Internacional Elsevier