A NEW APPROACH TO CHEMICAL CHARACTERIZATION OF POLYMER SURFACES

The ''three-liquid'' contact angle procedure of Good et al. was applied to polymer films of varying Lewis acidic and basic nature to test the procedure. Surface energy parameters with the units of mJ/m(2) are determined for the surfaces. These are gamma(s)(LW) (Lifshitz-van der Waals or apolar), gamma(s)(+) (acidic), and gamma(s)(-) (basic). Very little has yet been published on this new method, and this study found it to be promising. More research on the procedure is warranted. The study included films of basic polymethylmethacrylate (PMMA), and predominately acidic chlorinated polyvinylchloride (CPVC) and polyvinylfluoride (PVF) as well as the series: polyethylene (PE) and PE copolymerized with 1.8% and 7.0% acrylic acid. In some of the experiments receding contact angles were measured, and the surface energy parameters determined in order to cast more light on the mechanism of contact angle hysteresis. (C) 1995 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.