Polymer Surfaces and Interfaces

This book presents the analysis of up-to-date techniques used for the determination of acid-base properties in view of their applicability to examination of solid organic and inorganic surfaces. The studies have been carried out by the authors since 1993, showing experimental data on surface properties of more than 150 polymers, such as carbocatenary and heterochain polymers, copolymers and their blends, as well as different epoxy and rubber compositions used in adhesive joints. The adhesive ability of metal-polymer systems based on epoxy compositions, polyolefins, and rubbers was studied as a function of absolute difference in acid-base properties of adhesive and adherends, and the possibility to predict adhesive interaction on this basis was experimentally verified. The book shows the important role that acid-base interactions play in establishing interfacial adhesive-adherent contact and outlines practical recommendations regarding parameters of quantitative estimation of acid-base surface properties that implies the relationship with adhesive ability in polymer-metal systems. Creating polymeric materials with greater strength characteristics when in contact with metals is the most important problem when adhesive joints are designed. The authors obtained experimental data for thermodynamic and acid-base properties of about 200 organic and inorganic surfaces that find a wide practical application. These results may be used as a reference source to predict the adhesive ability of different coating systems. The possibility to predict adhesive interaction of adhesive with adherend, taking into account the absolute difference in their acidity and basicity, was verified experimentally.