Search results for "Polymer adsorption"
showing 10 items of 12 documents
Aqueous phase/nanoparticles interface: hydroxypropyl cellulose adsorption and desorption triggered by temperature and inorganic salts
2012
The study highlighted the main forces driving the adsorption of hydroxypropyl cellulose (HPC) onto clay nanoparticles with a disk-like shape (Laponite RD). Modeling the isothermal titration calorimetry data provided the key thermodynamic properties, which enabled us to discuss the microscopic aspects contributing to the energetic and the entropic changes of the polymer adsorption at the nanoparticle/liquid interface. We evidenced that the process is strongly enthalpy-driven and that the interactions lead to constraints of the HPC configuration at interface. The functionalized nanoparticles enhanced the polymer solubility in water expanding the one-phase area of the binodal curve. Temperatur…
Biopolymer-Targeted Adsorption onto Halloysite Nanotubes in Aqueous Media.
2017
Studies on the adsorption of biopolymers onto halloysite nanotubes (HNTs) in water were conducted. Three polymers with different charges-anionic (pectin), neutral (hydroxypropyl cellulose), and cationic (chitosan)-were chosen. The thermodynamic parameters for the adsorption of polymers onto the HNT surface were determined by isothermal titration calorimetry (ITC). The experimental data were interpreted based on a Langmuir adsorption model. The standard variations in free energy, enthalpy, and entropy of the process were obtained and discussed. Turbidimetry was used to evaluate the stability of functionalized nanoparticles in water. The ζ-potential clarified the surface charge properties of …
Semiflexible polymers confined in a slit pore with attractive walls: two-dimensional liquid crystalline order versus capillary nematization
2017
Semiflexible polymers under good solvent conditions interacting with attractive planar surfaces are investigated by Molecular Dynamics (MD) simulations and classical Density Functional Theory (DFT). A bead-spring type potential complemented by a bending potential is used, allowing variation of chain stiffness from completely flexible coils to rod-like polymers whose persistence length by far exceeds their contour length. Solvent is only implicitly included, monomer-monomer interactions being purely repulsive, while two types of attractive wall-monomer interactions are considered: (i) a strongly attractive Mie-type potential, appropriate for a strictly structureless wall, and (ii) a corrugat…
Polymer solutions confined in slit-like pores with attractive walls: An off-lattice Monte Carlo study of static properties and chain dynamics
1996
Using a bead spring model of flexible polymer chains, the density profiles and chain configurational properties of polymer solutions confined between parallel plates were studied. A wide range of density ϕ, chain length N, and strength e of a short-range attractive wall potential was investigated. Both a temperature T in the good solvent regime (T > θ, θ being the Theta temperature where a chain in unconfined bulk three-dimensional solution would behave ideally) and a temperature in the bad solvent regime (T θ) show a crossover from two-dimensional excluded volume behavior (Rg ∝ N2ν with ν = 3/4) to ideal random walk behavior (ν = 1/2), the relaxation times show effective exponents Zeff (τ …
Critical adsorption of a single macromolecule in polymer brushes.
2014
The adsorption of long flexible macromolecules by polymer brush-coated surfaces is studied by molecular dynamics simulations and by calculations using density functional and self-consistent field theories. The case of repulsive interactions between the substrate surface and the monomers of both the brush polymers and the extra chains that can get absorbed into the brush is considered. Under good solvent conditions, critical absorption can occur, if the interaction between the monomers of the brush polymers and the extra chain is (weakly) attractive. It is shown that it is possible to map out the details of the critical absorption transition, if the chain length and/or the grafting density o…
Polyethylene glycol/clay nanotubes composites
2012
Nanocomposites of poly(ethylene) glycol (PEG) 20000 filled with clay nanotubes (HNTs) were prepared. The thermal properties obtained from thermogravimetry and differential scanning calorimetry were correlated to the morphology imaged by scanning electron microscopy. Low amounts of HNTs generate compact structure while large amounts of HNTs create craters and voids. The decrease of polymer degradation temperature in the presence of large amount of nanoclay (ca. 80 wt%) is a consequence of the morphology at the mesoscale range. The thermal opposite effect observed in the HNTs low regime (up to ca. 20 wt%) is due to the gas entrapment into the nanoparticles lumen. The quantitative analysis of …
Mechanical Properties of Single Molecules and Polymer Aggregates
2013
This chapter deals with the mechanical properties of single polymer chains, aggregates, and supramolecular complexes. The topics discussed cover a broad range from fundamental statistical mechanics of the equilibrium elastic properties of single polymer chains to details of the behavior of binding pockets in biomolecular assemblies as observed by force spectroscopy. The first section treats the equilibrium mechanical properties of single polymer chains in various environments, investigated via extensive simulations employing coarse-grained models that have proven extremely successful in many branches of polymer physics, namely the bond-fluctuation model and the self-avoiding walk model. Apa…
Polymer absorption in dense polymer brushes vs. polymer adsorption on the brush-solvent interface
2014
Molecular-dynamics simulations of a coarse-grained model of a dense brush of flexible polymers (of type A) interacting with a long flexible macromolecule (of type B) are presented, considering the case of an attractive AB interaction, while effective interactions between AA and BB pairs of monomers are repulsive. Varying the strength of the attraction between unlike monomers, an adsorption transition at some critical value is found, where the B-chain is bound to the brush-solvent interface, similar to the adsorption on a planar solid substrate. However, when is much higher than , the long macromolecule is gradually “sucked in” the brush, developing many pieces that are locally stretched in …
Pattern-recognising Polymer Adsorption on Structured Surfaces: Gaussian Polymers vs. Freely Jointed Chains
2014
Abstract Selective adsorption of homopolymers is exploited as a model for pattern recognition. To this end the strong adsorption regime of Gaussian polymers adsorbed on a regularly structured surface is investigated for square and triangular lattices within a discrete Edwards model. The equilibrium behaviour of the specific heat, the gyration tensor and the (nematic) bond order tensor are analysed and compared to the properties for adsorbed freely jointed polymer chains.
Semidilute and Concentrated Polymer Solutions near Attractive Walls: Dynamic Monte Carlo Simulation of Density and Pressure Profiles of a Coarse-Gra…
1997
Using a bead−spring model of flexible polymer chains, we study polymer adsorption from solutions onto attractive planar walls, varying both the strength of the adsorption potential e and the concentration of the solution over a wide range. Treating the case of good solvents, the profiles of density and pressure are computed and it is shown that thermal equilibrium between the adsorbed layer and the bulk solution is obtained. The case of a wall with purely repulsive potential under otherwise identical conditions is treated for comparison. It is shown that for the strongly adsorbing wall there is a pronounced layering, while a layered structure at the repulsive wall occurs only for high conce…