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 hydrogen bonds affect the bulk properties and the colligative properties of polymers, 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 surfaces. Matrix methods are used to solve each of these problems. Numerical results for a block copolymer with a periodic repeat of a single strong bond and r weak bonds show that the adsorption is not well represented by a model which replaces the segments by those of an average energy. This means that the specifics of molecular architecture cannot be ignored as has been done in so much of the previously published work on adsorption. Because the matrices do not commute, block polymers and random copolymers of the same composition are expected to show different adsorption profiles.