Polymer adsorbed layers forces

The observed chaige reversal can prove the presence of two types of the PE adsorption sites on the capillary surface. At low concentration, the electrostatic adsorption of positively charged PE molecules predominantly occurs on the negatively charged sites of quartz surface. Thereafter (or simultaneously), on the surface of a capillary covered with a polymer adsorbed layer, the adsorption of the PE molecules can occur due to the forces of molecular attraction and attraction between hydrophobic sites of polyelectrolyte and surface (e.g. siloxane groups). Their competition with the electrostatic repulsion forces that increase in the course of further adsorption of PE molecules determines the completion of the adsorption and the formation of equilibrium (with the solution) adsorbed layer. 

The polymer concentration and the macromolecule conformation in the adsorption layer depend on the forces between the macromolecule and the solid surface. Therefore, an investigation of this phenomenon is very important for describing the polymer adsorption. Some information has been obtained by studying the forces between two polymer adsorbed layers as a function of the distance between them. 

In many colloidal systems, both in practice and in model studies, soluble polymers are used to control the particle interactions and the suspension stability. Here we distinguish tliree scenarios interactions between particles bearing a grafted polymer layer, forces due to the presence of non-adsorbing polymers in solution, and finally the interactions due to adsorbing polymer chains. Although these cases are discussed separately here, in practice more than one mechanism may be in operation for a given sample. 

The well-known DLVO theory of coUoid stabiUty (10) attributes the state of flocculation to the balance between the van der Waals attractive forces and the repulsive electric double-layer forces at the Hquid—soHd interface. The potential at the double layer, called the zeta potential, is measured indirectly by electrophoretic mobiUty or streaming potential. The bridging flocculation by which polymer molecules are adsorbed on more than one particle results from charge effects, van der Waals forces, or hydrogen bonding (see Colloids). 

Several experimental parameters have been used to describe the conformation of a polymer adsorbed at the solid-solution interface these include the thickness of the adsorbed layer (photon correlation spectroscopy(J ) (p.c.s.), small angle neutron scattering (2) (s.a.n.s.), ellipsometry (3) and force-distance measurements between adsorbed layers (A), and the surface bound fraction (e.s.r. (5), n.m.r. ( 6), calorimetry (7) and i.r. (8)). However, it is very difficult to describe the adsorbed layer with a single parameter and ideally the segment density profile of the adsorbed chain is required. Recently s.a.n.s. (9) has been used to obtain segment density profiles for polyethylene oxide (PEO) and partially hydrolysed polyvinyl alcohol adsorbed on polystyrene latex. For PEO, two types of system were examined one where the chains were terminally-anchored and the other where the polymer was physically adsorbed from solution. The profiles for these two... 

The force-distance profiles Al, A2 appear to show the relaxed, or quasi-equilibrium limit for the interaction between the mica plates bearing the PEO in the good solvent conditions of the present study. The adsorbed layer thicknesses 6 are then about half the value of D at which onset of repulsion (A curves) is first noted. 6 thus corresponds to some 3Rg for both polymers in the present investigation, a value comparable to that obtained for hydrodynamic layer thickness of PEO absorbed on latex particles in water, for similar molecular weights, from light scattering studies. 

Double-layer forces are commonly used to induce repulsive interactions in colloidal systems. However, the range of electrostatic forces is strongly reduced by increasing the ionic strength of the continuous phase. Also, electrostatic effects are strong only in polar solvents, which is a severe restriction. An alternative way to create long-range repulsion is to adsorb macromolecules at the interface between the dispersed and the continuous phase. Polymer chains may be densely adsorbed on surfaces where they form loops and tails with a very broad distribution of sizes... 

Dissolved polymer molecules can be adsorbed by polymer particles via electrostatic attractive force or hydrophobic interaction. When polyelectrolyte is adsorbed on an opposite-charge particle, the polymer molecules usually have a loop-and-tail conformation and, as a result, inversion of charge occurs. For example, sulfatecarrying particles behave as cationic ones after they adsorb poly(lysine). Then poly(-styrene sulfonate) can be adsorbed on such cationic particles and reinvert the charge of particles to anionic (14). Okubo et al. pointed out that the alternate adsorption of cationic and anionic polymers formed a piled layer of polyelectrolytes on the particle, but the increment of adsorbed layer thickness was much less than expected. This was attributed to synchronized piling of two oppositely charged polyelectrolytes (15). 

For particles covered by an adsorbed polymer layer, it is also necessary to take into account the effect on the steric repulsive forces of the structure of the adsorbed layer. For example, for the case of separations corresponding to 8 < H < 28, the values of mix associated with linear adsorbed layer profiles may be obtained from the equation (Vincent et al, 1986) ... 

Steric stabilization differs from electrostatic stabilization in not being a function of a net force, but of the thickness of an adsorbed layer. When < >, equals 5-10%, stabilizing and destabilizing forces extend beyond the length of the electrostatic, interparticle barrier (Cabane et al., 1989). At this distance, attraction and repulsion are inconsequential, and electrolytes therefore have little effect. Bergenstahl (1988) proposed that the steric stabilization of emulsions by gums in the presence of a surfactant involves adsorption of the gum on the surfactant to form a combined structure constituted by a primary surfactant layer covered by an adsorbed polymer layer. 

Here a mixture of sterically stabilized colloidal particles, solvent, and free polymer molecules in solution is considered. When two particles approach one another during a Brownian collision, the interaction potential between the two depends not only on the distance of separation between them, but also on various parameters, such as the thickness and the segment density distribution of the adsorbed layer, the concentration and the molecular weight of the free polymer. The various types of forces that are expected lo contribute to the interaction potential are (i) forces due to the presence of the adsorbed polymer, (ii) forces due to the presence of the free polymer, and (iii) van der Waals forces. It is assumed here that there are no electrostatic forces. A brief account of the nature of these forces as... 

In one of the limiting cases, the free polymer is allowed to penetrate the adsorbed layer around the particles. One may note that when the free polymer and the adsorbed polymer are both present in the steric layer around the particle, the interactions between the two must be taken into account while evaluating the in-terparticle forces. However, in the absence of a detailed knowledge of the structure of the adsorbed layer, it is difficult to evaluate this contribution to the interaction potential. Then, the situation is similar to the one considered by Asakura and Oosawa (16), and the force of attraction between two bare particles of radius a in the presence of free polymer molecules of radius / can be expressed as the product of the osmotic pressure Pmm and the area of the intersection of the two overlapping volumes ... 

In order to apply the above procedure to determine the conditions of phase separation, we have chosen the system of polyisobutene-stabilized silica particles with polystyrene as the free polymer dissolved in cyclohexane. The system temperature is chosen to be the 8 temperature for the polystyrene-cyclohexane system (34.5°C), corresponding to the experimental conditions of deHek and Vrij (1). The pertinent parameters required for the calculation of the contribution of the adsorbed layers to the total interaction potential are a = 48 nm, u, =0.18 nm3, 5 = 5 nm, Xi = 0.47(32), X2 = 0.10(32), v = 0.10, and up = 2.36 nm3. It can be seen from Fig. 2 that these forces are repulsive, with very large positive values for the potential energy at small distances of separation and falling off to zero at separation distances of the order of 25, where 6 is the thickness of the adsorbed layer. At the distance of separation 5, the expressions for the interpenetration domain and the interpenetration plus compression domain give the same value for the free energy, indicating a continuous transition from one domain to the other. 

The repulsive forces due to the presence of adsorbed polymer layers have a range of 26, where fi is the thickness of the adsorbed layer. The thickness of the adsorbed layer can be increased by increasing the molecular weight of... 

Keeping the thickness of the adsorbed layer constant, the effect of varying the amount of polymer adsorbed was also examined. The volume fraction of the polymer in the adsorbed layer is varied from 0.10 to 0.30. The increase of this volume fraction again provides increased stability since it increases the magnitude of the repulsive steric forces. The calculated values shown in Table 3 exhibit the expected trend, although the variation is not as strong as that found with the thickness of the adsorbed layer. 

---