Experimental aspects of polymer adsorption at solid/solution interfaces

Polymer adsorption at solid-liquid interfaces

This article reviews recent advances in polymer adsorption both in theory and experiment. The adsorption of macromolecules on interfaces plays an essential role in the diversity of practical problems in industry, technology and biology such as adhesion, flocculation and stabilization of colloid particles, chromatography, reinforcement, and artifical organs in medicine.

The structure of macromolecules adsorbed on interfaces

Publisher Summary Polymers in colloidal systems function in a variety of ways depending on their molecular structure and concentration, the nature of the solvent, and the characteristics of the particles. Three primary types of situations exist for homopolymers: adsorption, depletion, and grafting. Direct measurements of forces between surfaces exposed to or treated with well-characterized polymers have begun to define the phenomena and provide quantitative data for testing theories. The chapter discusses the effects on the quiescent state of colloidal dispersions, that is, stabilization, flocculation, phase separation, and dynamics such as the rheology. It explains the experimental techniques available for probing polymer–particle interactions and the lattice, that is, mean field, theories that predict, via numerical solutions, segment-density profiles and interaction potentials. It constructs a simple and elegant picture of the same phenomena through scaling theories developed for semidilute solutions. Polymer properties that depend primarily on gross molecular structure include the radius of gyration and the second virial coefficient in the series expansion of the solution osmotic pressure in powers of polymer concentration. Several recent studies demonstrate convincingly the possibilities for adjusting the rheology of colloidal dispersions through the incorporation of polymer. These are summarized in the chapter.

Hideyuki Hirota

Papers

Adsorption of Polystyrene at the θ Temperature