EFFECT OF HETEROGENEOUS ENERGIES ON ADSORPTION PROPERTIES - ADSORPTION OF COPOLYMERS, COMB POLYMERS, AND STARS ONTO A SURFACE

With a view to understanding how a dilute sprinkling of strong hydroge n bonds affect the bulk properties and the colligative properties of p olymers, we examine three polymer adsorption problems. They are (1) a copolymer between two adsorbing plates, (2) a comb polymer between two adsorbing surfaces, and (3) a star polymer between two absorbing surf aces. Matrix methods are used to solve each of these problems. Numeric al results for a block copolymer with a periodic repeat of a single st rong bond and r weak bonds show that the adsorption is not well repres ented by a model which replaces the segments by those of an average en ergy. This means that the specifics of molecular architecture cannot b e ignored as has been done in so much of the previously published work on adsorption. Because the matrices do not commute, block polymers an d random copolymers of the same composition are expected to show diffe rent adsorption profiles.