Surface adsorption of co-polymers

Abstract

Since the Polymer Age was born, researchers have manifested a great interest in investigating polymeric world. Such an enthusiasm arises from polymers’ astonishing proper- ties and the sign of their footprint in various places and natural phenomena. Studying the structure of these long molecules of repeating identical units makes a better insight of their mechanisms. Besides, discovering the fact that how polymers enroll in numerous natural events creates a huge opportunity for scientists to mimic their mechanisms in synthetic (human-made) processes or to improve their functions. So far, multitude of models and approaches have been utilized to investigate polymers. Here, we employ molecular dynamics simulations, where we model surface adsorption of co-polymers. The motivation behind this study is to examine if different physical and chemical criteria including initial conditions, chemical structures, and reference frames can have impact on copolymers’ adsorption. Our simulations qualitatively indicate that different co-polymers get adsorbed on the surface. Furthermore, using the data extracted from simulations, we analyze modification of monomers’ concentrations while co-polymers get adsorbed on the surface. We, also, quantify changes of brush height, and creation of loops on the surface. Then, by replacing di-block co-polymers (the first type of co-polymers for our model) with tri-block, random, and alternating co-polymers, also homopolymers, we analyze parameters and reach to distinct patterns for each type of linear co-polymers. In another attempt, we modify strength of interactions to investigate possible impacts of solvent on adsorption process. For the last step, we try to alter the arrangement of co-polymers on the surface, and this time, measure the same parameters and compare results with the previous configuration. We think this study to cascade into more aspects of surface-adsorption of co-polymers, and, in an extensive view, to have implications in the creation of insight into biological phenomena, and/or the biotechnological research and applications.