For the binary SAM coated SPIONs, the characterized combination of orthogonal properties of charged PAC3Imi+@SPIONs and hydrophobic PAC16@SPIONs or PAC10Ph@SPIONs translates into their interaction with the pollutant molecules. The extraction is dominated by the properties of the alkyl part of the SAM, however, complemented with the influence of PAC3Imi+ (compare ζ-potentials in Figure , supplementary information) enabling average removal amounts in between the unitary SAMs. As mentioned before, PAC10Ph was used not only to serve hydrophobic interaction sites, but also to provide electron-rich phenyl rings for potential interaction with electron-deficient, chlorinated phenyl rings of the PCBs. While the magnetic extraction performance of PAC16@SPIONs and PAC10Ph@SPIONs differs only insignificantly, PAC3Imi+/PAC10Ph@SPIONs shows on average a worse performance for biphenyl and PCB 2, a comparable one for PCB 14 and an increase for PCB 77 (with large variation in between multiplicates) in reference to the other binary coated system. This points to a potential second, weaker instance of electrostatic interaction: repulsion between electronrich rings of biphenyl and PCB 2 and the electron-rich phenyl ring in PAC10Ph as well as attraction of electron-deficient rings in PCB 77 towards these.