Organization of “Pullulan”-block-polyether copolymers at the aqueous solution/air interface

Interfacial behavior of a thermosensitive homologous series of linear copolymers based on polyetheramine (commercially named Jeffamine® M2005) and on pullulan is investigated. The influence of the polysaccharide block length has been significantly highlighted on the copolymer structuring at the aqueous solution/air interface. Indeed, these systems induce a decrease in the surface tension depending on the pullulan length. To highlight the impact of the pullulan length in such a series at the aqueous solution/air interface, the interfacial rheological measurement and the transferred Gibbs films of these systems have been studied. The storage modulus of the adsorption layers and the Gibbs film thickness increase along with the length of pullulan in the block, probably because of a structuring effect in the subphase and to an entanglement effect of the pullulan chains under the interface. Moreover, the results obtained through the transferred Gibbs films backup those obtained by the surface tension and the interfacial rheological measurements.

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► We investigate the interfacial behavior of multisensitive homologous copolymers.
► Interfacial rheological measurements of Gibbs films have been studied.
► Storage modulus of adsorption layers increases with the length of pullulan macromolecules.
► Atomic force microscopy complement’s results obtained on Gibbs films.