화학공학소재연구정보센터
Langmuir, Vol.17, No.3, 883-890, 2001
Electrostatically tunable coadsorption of sodium dodecyl sulfate and poly(ethylene oxide)-b-poly(propylene oxide)-b-poly(ethylene oxide) triblock copolymer to silica
Interfacial properties can be tuned by exploiting polymer/surfactant interactions. We find that coadsorption of the anionic surfactant sodium dodecyl sulfate (SDS) and the amphiphilic triblock copolymer poly(ethylene oxide-b-propylene oxide-b-ethylene oxide), Pluronic F108, to silica is extremely sensitive to SDS concentration and ionic strength. First, using a pyrene solubilization assay we identify the surfactant concentration regimes where different F108/SDS aggregates form in bulk solution at several ionic strengths. We then measure the total surface excess concentration of coadsorbing F108 and SDS using optical reflectometry. Above the critical aggregation concentration where F108/SDS aggregates form, the coadsorbed amount decreases with increasing surfactant concentration until an SDS concentration is reached at which adsorption is prevented entirely. Furthermore, although adsorbed layers containing only F108 are irreversibly adsorbed, F 108/SDS layers are reversibly adsorbed. These results suggest that F108 is "shuttling'' the normally nonadsorbing SDS to the silica surface. At high ionic strength, we find that sequential coadsorption followed by removal of SDS from the adsorbed layer results in an enhanced adsorbed amount of F108 (compared to direct adsorption of F108 in the absence of SDS). Thus, surfactant-free F108 layers can be "sculpted" into a different conformation by sequential processing with SDS. Finally, scaling of our coadsorption data with the bulk binding transitions (onset of cooperative binding and saturation of the polymer) indicates that changes in adsorbed amount occur at SDS concentrations both below where aggregates form and above the point where the polymer is saturated in the bulk.