Mechanism of ion adsorption to aqueous interfaces: Graphene/water vs. air/water

Significance The Gibbs free energy of adsorption of a prototypical anion to a graphene/water interface is determined by surface-sensitive spectroscopy and interpreted via molecular dynamics simulations to establish the adsorption mechanism, which is found to be qualitatively different from that operative for the air/water interface and probably representative of a general water/hydrophobe interface.