The study of a class of materials almost always begins with the development of an understanding of properties in the bulk state. However, pure bulk phases are idealizations rather than widely encountered realities. It is actually the study of surface critical phenomena that has led to a number of new important insights into polymer behavior. For numerous commercial applications of polymers the near-surface properties are critical to performance. Properties such as chemical resistance, wettability, and tribology are determined by the structure within a few nanometers of the polymer-air interface. Despite this, surprisingly little is known about the free surface structure of most polymer systems. The localization of polymer chain-ends to their surface can arise from an entropic penalty or by enthalpic favoritism for chain ends and can dictate several surface properties such as the glass transition temperature (Tg), surface energy, and tribology. This has been characterized in several flexible polymer systems, but little work has been done with semi-rigid and rigid rod polymers. It is the purpose of this research to quantify and characterize the localization of hydroxy (-OH) terminated chain-ends to the polymer-air interface of solution cast polyethersulfone(PESU) films and to determine the effect of chain-end localization on the surface properties of PESU films. Commercial PESU was fractionated and characterized using static light scattering. Fractionated films were prepared via solution casting and characterized using GATR-FTIR and dynamic and static contact angle.

Characterization of surface chain end behavior in fractionated polyethersulfone solution cast films

247th National Meeting (2014)

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