Through the methods such as measurements of contact angle and surface tension, calculations of surface energy and interfacial interaction free energy, and four weak hydrophilic substances (WHS) were taken as research objects, some interesting conclusions were obtained as follow. In aqueous medium, the WHS give priority to adsorb on low-energy surface that is low polar or particularly non-polar. There is a clear corresponding relationship between the free energy and Lewis base component gamma(-) or the hydrophile index of low-energy surface, and the specific relationship is obtained. Finally, we find hydrophobic attractive force of the Lewis acid-base interaction is mainly responsible for the absorption of WHS on low-energy surface. In short, an initial insight into adsorption behavior of WHS on low-energy surface is demonstrated in this paper. Crown Copyright (C) 2011 Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.