The full-text may be used and/or reproduced, and given to third parties in any format or medium, without prior permission or charge, for personal research or study, educational, or not-for-prot purposes provided that:• a full bibliographic reference is made to the original source • a link is made to the metadata record in DRO • the full-text is not changed in any way The full-text must not be sold in any format or medium without the formal permission of the copyright holders.Please consult the full DRO policy for further details. Abstract TIR Raman spectroscopy has been used to study the adsorption of surfactants onto cellulose. The cellulose was prepared by Langmuir-Blodgett deposition of trimethylsilylcellulose onto silica followed by removal of the trimethylsilyl groups with acid to generate a hydrophilic surface. The reaction was followed in situ with Raman spectroscopy, revealing a two-step hydrolysis. Adsorption isotherms of hexadecyltrimethylammonium bromide (CTAB) and Triton X-100(TX-100) on hydrophilic cellulose were obtained by TIR Raman scattering under quasi-equilibrium conditions where the bulk concentration was slowly but continuously varied. The isotherms of both surfactants are almost linear, in contrast to the isotherms on hydrophilic silica. The CTAB isotherm shows hysteresis depending on whether the concentration of the surfactant is increasing or decreasing due to a slow adsorption region. A mixture of TX-100 and CTAB shows ideal adsorption, in contrast to adsorption of the same mixture on silica where there is a strong cooperative interaction at low CTAB surface coverage.