Steric stabilization of polyvinyl alcohol adsorbed on silica/water and water/oil interfaces

The steric hindrance of various polyvinyl alcohol samples was investigated by measuring the force-distance curves between crossed quartz filaments with adsorbed layers of PVA. Results were obtained by changing the concentration of macromolecules, the average macromolecular weight, the electrolyte concentration, the kind of electrolytes, the temperature and by adding organic solvents. The results were compared with calculations using the Hesselink-Vrij-Overbeek Theory.It could be shown that only a small amount of “longer” tails is responsible for the stabilization but the segment distribution functions are different for different samples.