Competitive adsorption of the protein hydrophobin and an ionic surfactant: parallel vs sequential adsorption and dilatational rheology

The competitive adsorption of the protein HFBII hydrophobin and the anionic surfactant sodium dodecyl sulfate (SDS) is investigated in experiments on parallel and sequential adsorption of the two components. The dynamic surface tension and the surface storage and loss dilatational moduli are determined by the oscillating bubble method. A new procedure for data processing is proposed, which allows one to collect data from many different runs on a single master curve and to determine more accurately the dependence of the dilatational elasticity on the surface pressure. Experiments on sequential adsorption are performed by exchanging the HFBII solution around the bubble with an SDS solution. Experiments with separate thin foam films bring additional information on the effect of added SDS. The results indicate that if HFBII has first adsorbed at the air/water interface, it cannot be displaced by SDS at any concentration, both below and above the critical micellization concentration (CMC). In the case of parallel adsorption, there is a considerable difference between the cases below and above the CMC. In the former case, SDS cannot prevent the adsorption of HFBII at the interface, whereas in the latter case adsorption of HFBII is absent, which can be explained with hydrophilization of the hydrophobin aggregates by the SDS in the bulk. The surface dilatational elasticity of the HFBII adsorption layers markedly decreases in the presence of SDS, but it recovers after washing out the SDS. With respect to their dilatational rheology, the investigated HFBII layers exhibit purely elastic behavior, the effect of dilatational viscosity being negligible. As a function of surface tension, the elasticity of the investigated interfacial layers exhibits a high maximum, which could be explained with the occurrence of a phase transition in the protein adsorption layer.