Mu, M, A. M. Leermakers, F, Chen, J et al. (2 more authors) (2023) Effect of polymer architecture on the adsorption behaviour of amphiphilic copolymers: A theoretical study. Journal of Colloid and Interface Science, 644. pp. 333-345. ISSN 0021-9797
Abstract
Hypothesis
Polymer architecture is known to have significant impact on its adsorption behaviour. Most studies have been concerned with the more concentrated, “close to surface saturation” regime of the isotherm, where complications such as lateral interactions and crowding also additionally affect the adsorption. We compare a variety of amphiphilic polymer architectures by determining their Henry’s adsorption constant (kH), which, as with other surface active molecules, is the proportionality constant between surface coverage and bulk polymer concentration in a sufficiently dilute regime. It is speculated that not only the number of arms or branches, but also the position of adsorbing hydrophobes influence the adsorption, and that by controlling the latter the two can counteract each other.
Methodology
The Self-consistent field calculation of Scheutjens and Fleer was implemented to calculate the adsorbed amount of polymer for many different polymer architectures including linear, star and dendritic. Using the adsorption isotherms at very low bulk concentrations, we determined the value of kH for these.
Findings
It is found that the branched structures (star polymers and dendrimers) can be viewed as analogues of linear block polymers based on the location of their adsorbing units. Polymers containing consecutive trains of adsorbing hydrophobes in all cases showed higher level of adsorption compared to their counterparts, where the hydrophobes were more uniformly distributed on the chains. While increasing the number of branches (or arms for star polymers) also confirmed the known result that the adsorption decreased with the number of arms, this trend can be partially offset by the appropriate choice of the location of anchoring groups.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © 2023 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Inc. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). |
Keywords: | Amphiphilic copolymers; Polymer surface adsorption; Colloidal dispersions; Polymer architecture; Henry’s constant; Self-Consistent field (SCF) |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Leeds |
Academic Units: | The University of Leeds > Faculty of Environment (Leeds) > School of Food Science and Nutrition (Leeds) > FSN Colloids and Food Processing (Leeds) |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Publications |
Date Deposited: | 02 May 2023 15:34 |
Last Modified: | 02 May 2023 15:34 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | Elsevier |
Identification Number: | 10.1016/j.jcis.2023.04.051 |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:198768 |