Molecular Weight Dependence of Surface Tension of Poly(ethylene oxide) Solution

JW Zhang and L Qian and JJ Zhou and GZ Zhang, JOURNAL OF PHYSICAL CHEMISTRY B, 127, 6743-6750 (2023).

DOI: 10.1021/acs.jpcb.3c01719

Surface tension plays a critical role in a wide rangeof fieldssuch as adhesion, wetting, and capillarity. Herein, we combine experimentsand molecular dynamics (MD) simulations to study the surface tension(& gamma;) of poly(ethylene oxide) (PEO) solution as a function ofits molecular weight (M). In experiments, we revealthat & gamma; is scaled to M with |& gamma; -& gamma;(& INFIN;)| & PROP; M (& alpha;) up to a critical molecular weight (M*). Simulationwith a coarse-grained polymer solution model shows that & alpha; decreasesas the solvent quality becomes worse. The combination of the experimentsand simulations reveal that & alpha; is slightly affected by PEO concentration.On the other hand, M* decreases as the solvent qualitydecreases or as the polymer concentration increases. Our study demonstratesthat the surface tension of the polymer solution is determined bythe adsorption of the polymer at the air-solution surface.

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