Small-angle neutron scattering study of cyclic poly(ethylene glycol) adsorption on colloidal particles

The adsorptions of cyclic PEG and linear PEG on colloidal silica particles were compared. Their adsorption volume fraction profiles were generated through model fitting of small-angle neutron scattering data from the adsorbed polymer layers. The two important parameters to describe adsorbed polymer layers were discussed in detail. It was found that the adsorption amounts of cyclic PEGs increased with molecular weight but were generally higher than their linear counterparts. However, the root-mean-square layer thickness, δ(rms), of adsorbed cyclic PEGs was found to decrease with molecular weight, opposing adsorbed linear PEGs and the theoretic prediction based on SF model. This disagreement was ascribed to the topological restriction of cyclic polymer at low molecular weight. An illustrated structural evolution with molecular weight for adsorbed polymer at interface was tentatively proposed based on the observations of this study.