ADSORPTION OF POLYMERIC LATTICE FLUIDS AT A NONINTERACTING HARD-WALL - A COMPARISON OF DISCRETIZED POLYMER REFERENCE INTERACTION SITE MODEL(RISM) THEORY, SCHEUTJENS-FLEER THEORY, AND MONTE-CARLO SIMULATIONS

A discretized version of the polymer-reference interaction site model (RISM) theory is investigated on its capabilities to assess the adsorp tion behavior of interacting polymeric lattice fluids near a flat wall . Both the density profile of the fluid at the wall and the equation o f state of the bulk fluid (obtained from the density profile via a met hod of Dickman) are compared to Monte Carlo simulations. The profiles are also compared to the outcome of a classical lattice-based adsorpti on theory, the Scheutjens-Fleer formalism. At all bulk packing fractio ns, the Scheutjens-Fleer theory is found to be superior to the polymer -RISM theory, although it is made plausible that the performance of th e discretized polymer-RISM theory can be improved significantly by usi ng a nonreversal random walk intramolecular distribution, instead of t he random walk intramolecular distribution used in this work.