NONEQUILIBRIUM INTERFACIAL TENSION MEASUREMENTS ON POLYMER SOLUTIONS

摘要

The observation of critical phenomena in polymer solutions is hindered by the slow approach of such systems to equilibrium. We have addressed this problem with a variation of the sessile drop technique that allows equilibrium interfacial properties to be obtained from systems far from equilibrium. Following a temperature jump, the interfacial region of a drop responds rapidly compared with the bulk phases, and, despite significant flux of polymer and solvent across it, the interface can reveal information about the equilibrium state well before bulk equilibration is complete. Interfacial data from these systems show good agreement with data from equilibrated samples. The kinetics of solvent and polymer transport across the interface following a temperature perturbation are also examined. (C) 1996 American Institute of Physics. [References: 16]