2004/01/20 by Karl Isak Skau, Edgar M. Blokhuis, Skau, Karl Isak +3
Chemical Engineering · Chemistry · Materials Science · Physics and Astronomy · #Advanced Physical and Chemical Molecular Interactions #FOS: Physical sciences #Material Dynamics and Properties #Rheology and Fluid Dynamics Studies #Soft Condensed Matter (cond-mat.soft) #cond-mat.soft
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.cond-mat/0401362
31 pages, 9 figures. Accepted for publication in Macromolecules
arxiv created 2004/01/20 · openalex publication_date 2004/01/20 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
In a previous article [E.M. Blokhuis, K.I. Skau, and J.B. Avalos, J. Chem.\nPhys. 119, 3483 (2003)], a self-consistent field formalism was derived for\nweakly adsorbing polymers, valid for any chain length. It was shown that the\npresence of a solid wall induces an ordering of the polymers on the scale of\nthe radius of gyration far away from the surface (the distal region). These\noscillations in the polymer concentration profile were first noted in work by\nSemenov et al., and later observed in numerical solutions of the Scheutjens and\nFleer self-consistent field model. In the present paper, we compare the weak\nadsorption model in more detail with the numerical results from the Scheutjens\nand Fleer model. Quantitative agreement is obtained for the polymer segment\ndensity profile in a good (athermal) solvent. For theta solvent and poor\nsolvent conditions, it is necessary to extend the weak adsorption model to take\nthe non-local character of the polymer-solvent interaction into account. Again,\nquantitative agreement is obtained for the polymer segment density profile, in\nparticular for the transition from an oscillatory decaying profile to a\nmonotonically decaying profile when the bulk polymer density is below a certain\nthreshold value.\n