RESEARCH PAPER Characterization on the precipitate sample of cetyltrimethylammonium bromide adsorbed onto nanocube CaCO 3 particles from aqueous-ammonia- rich solution Raymond V. Rivera Virtudazo • Masayoshi Fuji • Chika Takai • Takashi Shirai Received: 17 October 2011 / Accepted: 9 November 2012 / Published online: 23 November 2012 Ó Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2012 Abstract Physicochemical analysis on the precipi- tate samples of the cationic cetyltrimethylammonium bromide (CTAB) adsorbed onto nanocube CaCO 3 particles (NcCP) in aqueous ammonia rich (NH 4 ? ) solution was initially examined. The amount of CTAB added to the ( \ 100 nm) NcCP ranging from 0.04 to 88.5 mM was prepared under room temperature aque- ous alkaline condition and characterized by thermo- gravimetry/differential thermogravimetric analysis (TGA/DTA), Raman spectroscopy (RS), scanning electron microscopy, transmission electron micros- copy (TEM), gas chromatograph combined with mass spectrometer analysis (GC–MS), and powder X-ray diffraction pattern. RS, GC–MS, and TGA/DTA analyses indicate that only layer of CTAB molecules were present on the surface of the NcCP. Moreover, this thin sheet layer was morphologically observed by the TEM image (particularly at 88 mM concentration of CTAB). In general, adsorption of CTAB molecules onto NcCP under aqueous alkaline medium had no effect on the cubic crystal structure and particle morphology. The present study confirms the adsorp- tion mechanism of cationic surfactant onto NcCP colloids model and contributes to the better under- standing of the possible structural arrangement of the sorbed surfactant molecules onto the NcCP-aqueous alkaline interface by simple characterization method. This investigation is expected to create new, low-cost route to produce promising nanopowders and conver- sion to hollow particles with multi-component porous surface shell wall. Keywords Colloidal CaCO 3 nanoparticles Á Adsorption Á Surfactant Á Aqueous-alkaline medium Introduction Adsorption of surfactant on inorganic nanoparticle has been an important aspect for various applications such as in corrosion prevention, adhesion, and lubrication (Myers 1999; Beach et al. 2006). Currently, most of these types of nanoparticles (commercially available, e.g., silica, calcium carbonate, and carbon black), if without surface treatment, are mostly not surface active due to their extreme hydrophilic or hydrophobic prop- erties (Cui et al. 2009). A popular route in obtaining Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (doi:10.1007/s11051-012-1304-8) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users. R. V. R. Virtudazo Á M. Fuji (&) Á C. Takai Á T. Shirai Advanced Ceramics Research Center, Nagoya Institute of Technology, Crystal Plaza 4F, 3-101-1 Honmachi, Tajimi, Gifu 507-0033, Japan e-mail: fuji@nitech.ac.jp R. V. R. Virtudazo e-mail: raymond@crl.nitech.ac.jp; rvrv26@gmail.com C. Takai e-mail: c_takai@crl.nitech.ac.jp T. Shirai e-mail: shirai@nitech.ac.jp 123 J Nanopart Res (2012) 14:1304 DOI 10.1007/s11051-012-1304-8