Evidence of a Transition Layer between the Free Surface and the Bulk
dc.contributor.author | Ogieglo, Wojciech | |
dc.contributor.author | Tempelman, Kristianne | |
dc.contributor.author | Napolitano, Simone | |
dc.contributor.author | Benes, Nieck E. | |
dc.date.accessioned | 2018-04-02T02:59:30Z | |
dc.date.available | 2018-04-02T02:59:30Z | |
dc.date.issued | 2018-02-21 | |
dc.identifier.citation | Ogieglo W, Tempelman K, Napolitano S, Benes NE (2018) Evidence of a Transition Layer between the Free Surface and the Bulk. The Journal of Physical Chemistry Letters 9: 1195–1199. Available: http://dx.doi.org/10.1021/acs.jpclett.8b00076. | |
dc.identifier.issn | 1948-7185 | |
dc.identifier.doi | 10.1021/acs.jpclett.8b00076 | |
dc.identifier.uri | http://hdl.handle.net/10754/627397 | |
dc.description.abstract | The free surface, a very thin layer at the interface between polymer and air, is considered the main source of the perturbations in the properties of ultrathin polymer films, i.e., nanoconfinement effects. The structural relaxation of such a layer is decoupled from the molecular dynamics of the bulk. The free surface is, in fact, able to stay liquid even below the temperature where the polymer resides in the glassy state. Importantly, this surface layer is expected to have a very sharp interface with the underlying bulk. Here, by analyzing the penetration of n-hexane into polystyrene films, we report on the existence of a transition region, not observed by previous investigations, extending for 12 nm below the free surface. The presence of such a layer permits reconciling the behavior of interfacial layers with current models and has profound implications on the performance of ultrathin membranes. We show that the expected increase in the flux of the permeating species is actually overruled by nanoconfinement. | |
dc.description.sponsorship | The authors acknowledge financial support of the Dutch Institute for Sustainable Process Design (ISPT). S.N. acknowledges financial support from the Fonds de la Recherche Scientifique (FNRS) under Grant No. T.0147.16 “TIACIC”. | |
dc.publisher | American Chemical Society (ACS) | |
dc.rights | This document is the Accepted Manuscript version of a Published Work that appeared in final form in The Journal of Physical Chemistry Letters, copyright © American Chemical Society after peer review and technical editing by the publisher. To access the final edited and published work see https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acs.jpclett.8b00076. | |
dc.rights.uri | https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acs.jpclett.8b00076 | |
dc.title | Evidence of a Transition Layer between the Free Surface and the Bulk | |
dc.type | Article | |
dc.contributor.department | Advanced Membranes and Porous Materials Research Center | |
dc.contributor.department | Physical Science and Engineering (PSE) Division | |
dc.identifier.journal | The Journal of Physical Chemistry Letters | |
dc.eprint.version | Post-print | |
dc.contributor.institution | Films in Fluids, University of Twente, Enschede 7522 NB, The Netherlands | |
dc.contributor.institution | Laboratory of Polymer and Soft Matter Dynamics, Faculté des Sciences, Université libre de Bruxelles (ULB), Boulevard du Triomphe, Bâtiment NO, Bruxelles 1050, Belgium | |
kaust.person | Ogieglo, Wojciech | |
refterms.dateFOA | 2019-02-21T00:00:00Z | |
dc.date.published-online | 2018-02-21 | |
dc.date.published-print | 2018-03-15 |