Effect of Surfactants on 1,2-Dichloroethane-in-Water Droplet Impacts at Electrified Liquid-Liquid Interface

•Emulsion droplets interactions with ITIES are studied.•Surfactants affect emulsion droplets impacts at ITIES.•Surfactants stabilized emulsions are employed as biomimetic platforms.•Impacts of the emulsion droplets can be studied with macroscopic ITIES.•CMC derived from interfacial tension measurements in ΔorgaqΦ dependent. In this work, we used the electrified liquid-liquid interface (eLLI) to study the fusion of DCE-in-water organic droplets (soft particles) upon coming into contact with the soft interface. Our focus was to define the effect of the neutral (1-tetradodecanol) and ionic (cetyltrimethylammonium bromide and sodium dodecylsulfonate) surfactants that stabilize the colloidal solution on the electroanalytical output of the impact events. The electrochemically and interfacially active salt used in our work (tetramethylammonium tetrakis(4-chlorophenyl)borate) was always initially dissolved in the organic phase droplets. When the potential drop at the interface was set below the formal Galvani potential of the tetramethylammonium cation ion transfer, we observed ionic current events upon the fusion of the droplets at the eLLI, as studied by chronoamperometry. This phenomenon was found to be severely affected by the surfactants. Our system was investigated with several methods, including cyclic voltammetry, chronoamperometry, interfacial tension measurements, and finally zeta potential and droplet size distribution measurements based on dynamic light scattering. [Display omitted]