The isolation and characterisation of grafts from glass surfaces and their immiscibility with homopolymer

A procedure for photochemically detaching, isolating and characterising grafts (produced by a method developed previously by the authors) from glass surfaces is described. Preliminary results indicate that the molecular weights and molecular weight distributions can be varied through control of the kinetics of graft formation; our previous studies are seen to have produced a high surface coverage of grafts of high molecular weight. A thermodynamic argument is developed to explain the immiscibility of grafts with free homopolymer for high surface coverage by grafts from which it is seen that the immiscibility is entropy-driven. Comparisons are drawn between our previous studies and relevant studies by other workers and apparent anomolies are explained.