Effect of the Tacticity of PMMA Adsorbed on Alumina and Silica on the Specific Entropy Change of Polymer by Inverse GC

Abstract

Inverse gas chromatography (IGC) at infinite dilution is a powerful technique to characterize the superficial and interfacial properties of solid substrates as oxides, polymers or polymers adsorbed on oxides. It can also be used to determine the physicochemical properties and the transition phenomena of polymers. In this paper, IGC was used to determine the changes, as a function of temperature, of the specific free enthalpy ΔG and deduce the specific entropy ΔS of poly (methyl methacrylate) (PMMA) adsorbed on alumina or on silica for different tacticities of PMMA. The study of the surface properties of PMMA/SiO2 and PMMA/Al2O3, revealed an important difference in the physicochemical behaviour of oxides covered by various concentrations of PMMA. This study also highlighted an important effect of the tacticity of the polymer on the specific entropy of PMMA adsorbed on oxides.