Molecular dynamics simulation study on controlling the adsorption behavior of polyethylene by fine tuning the surface nanodecoration of graphite.

Molecular dynamics simulations are applied to study the adsorption of polyethylene with different chain lengths on patterned graphite surfaces that contain nanoscale protrusions. The influence of the nanostructure on the strong attractive interaction inherently in the hydrophobic polyethylene and hydrophobic graphite system is investigated by modifying the top surface area and the height and the shape of the protrusions. The results are analyzed in terms of the chain configuration, the adsorption energy, the global orientational order parameter, and the normalized surface-chain contacting pair number in the first adsorption layer. When the size of the protrusion increases, the adsorption energy, the order parameter, and the normalized surface-chain contacting pair number decrease at a fixed chain length. When the size of the protrusion is fixed, the average adsorption energy per monomer and the order parameter decrease with increasing chain length because of the stronger intramolecular interactions between the monomers. Changing the protrusion shape in a suitable way will effectively reduce the strong surface-chain interaction.