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| Author(s): |
Nara Cristina de Souza
Total Authors: 1
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| Document type: | Doctoral Thesis |
| Press: | São Carlos. |
| Institution: | Universidade de São Paulo (USP). Instituto de Física de São Carlos (IFSC/BT) |
| Defense date: | 2002-12-12 |
| Examining board members: |
Osvaldo Novais de Oliveira Junior;
Mauricio da Silva Baptista;
Annette Gorenstein;
Ubirajara Pereira Rodrigues Filho;
José Fábian Schneider
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| Advisor: | Osvaldo Novais de Oliveira Junior |
| Abstract | |
This thesis addresses the adsorption properties of poly(o-methoxyaniline) (POMA) in layer-by-Iayer (LBL) films, for which POMA layers were alternated with layers of the polyanionic poly(vinylsulfonicacid) (PVS). Due to the reduced solubility of POMA, the method of preparation of POMA aqueous solution sinterfered in the adsorption characteristics. For POMA with controlled mass, which contained high molecular weight fractions, the kinetics of adsorption of a POMA layer on already deposited POMA/PVS films obeyed a two-step process. The first process is a firs torder kinetics process while the second one is described by the Johnson-Mehl-Avrami function with n = 1, characteristic of preferential growth of cylinders. This growth was confirmed in the analysis of aggregate size in atomic force microscopy (AFM) measurements. The morphological properties of these POMA/PVS films were analyzed using scaling laws, where the fractal dimension was approximately 2.2, denoting self-affine adsorption. For polydisperse POMA with no control of \"molecular weight\", the amount of material adsorbed increased non-monotonically with time due to a competition between adsorption and desorption mechanisms. Such competition was also manifested in themorphological properties, with the grain size in POMA/PVS films increasing non-monotonically with time. The importance of H-bonding in the adsorption mechanisms for POMA was demonstrated in several instances. For example, it is shown that POMA adsorption is efficient for solutions with pH 5 where POMA is not doped and therefore ionic attraction cannot be held responsible for adsorption. Moreover, non-self-limited adsorption of POMA was demonstrated, which depended on the interruptions in the adsorption process. H-bonding probably occurs in entrained water, which was shown to be present in POMA powder and in POMA/PVS films deposited on silica particles, using differential scanning calorimetry (DSC). Activation energies of 6-15 kcal/mol were estimated, which can be attributed to H-bonding. Because of H-bonding interactions the amount of material adsorbed increases with the number of bilayers, and this is reflected in the adsorption isotherms for POMA. The latter were analyzed with Fillippova\'s model in which the adsorption kinetics of polyelectrolytes on a planar surface is described. It allows estimation of activation energies characterizing interactions between polyelectrolyte/polyelectrolyte, polyelectrolyte/interface and polyelectrolyte/solvent. The energy of interaction between the molecules to be adsorbed and the substrate (bare or coated with POMA/PVS layers) increases with the number of bilayers, from 0.9 kcal/mol for the bare substrate to 5.39 kcal/mol for a POMA layer adsorbed on a 10-bilayer POMA/PVS film (AU) | |