The main principles of polymer adsorption from dilute solution

1 THE MAIN PRINCIPLES OF POLYMER ADSORPTION FROM DILUTE SOLUTION 

Adsorption of polymers essentially differs from adsorption of low-molecu-lar-mass substances. The difference is associated not only with macromolecular size of the molecules adsorbed from solution, but also because of different conformations of the macromolecular coil, the degree of interpenetration of the coils, and the degree of their aggregation, i.e., different shapes and sizes of the particles are adsorbed. With the exception of extremely dilute solutions, the effect of adsorption depends on concentration of the solution from which the adsorption occurs. There are many works and reviews where the modern theories of adsorption are discussed. 

Due to conformational hmitations, brought about by the siuface and statistical conformations of the macromolecular cods in the solution, the pol3rmer chain is bound to the siuface with a relatively small ncunber of segments, p. It can be determined experimentally and calculated using the equation  

Prigogine identified three effects of adsorption from dilute solutions  

In describing the mechanism of adsorption, it is necessary to account for the nature of the solvent. The thermodynamic quality of the solvent is the main factor, determining the chain conformations. All current theories of adsorption from dilute solutions include the parameter of interaction between polymer and solvent. Temperature dependence of this parameter also determines the temperature dependence of adsorption and the characteristics of the adsorption layer (for more details see references 1-13). 

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