An NMR study of sodium poly(acrylate) adsorption on rutile

Adsorption of sodium poly(acrylate) (PA) on rutile particles in aqueous dispersion was studied. Two different molecular weights of PA (2,100 and 30,000) and two different grades of rutile were used. Various pHs, ionic strengths, and PA concentrations were investigated. The main technique employed was measurement of the transverse NMR relaxation of the solvent using the CPMG pulse sequence. Other techniques used to augment these results include electroacoustics, scanning electron microscopy, and measurement of the adsorbed amount of PA by a fluorescence spectroscopy technique using the dye acridine orange. Adsorption of small ions such as Na+, K+, Cl-, and NO3- to the particle surface was found to have a significant effect on the measured transverse relaxation rate, that was dependent on the pH and the concentration of the ions. There was usually an additional effect on the relaxation due to the adsorbed PA, but only qualitative rather than quantitative information about the adsorption could be deduced. At pH 4 especially, it could be seen that the results were consistent with the common assertion that polymers adsorb in a flat conformation at low concentration, and only become looped when all of the surface sites are full. At pH 10 it was found that the relaxation rate for the longer chain PA samples fluctuated over time, indicating metastable PA conformations. There were also unusual trends in the relaxation rate for these samples, which could be due to a previously proposed small ion complexation mechanism for PA adsorption at high pH in this system. It is possible that an extensive and comprehensive study using this technique, investigating all of the relevant parameters, especially the effect of small ion adsorption, may allow a quantitative description of the adsorbed conformation. (author)