ABSTRACT
Adsorbed layers of polymer or surfactant molecules, or combinations of the two, are important because they are ubiquitous in everyday products. For example, they may be used to modify the behaviour of a product during processing or to stabilize that product against flocculation. As such polymer adsorption is found in applications as diverse as cosmetic and pharmaceutical preparations, paint and agrochemical formulations and even foodstuffs. Polymer adsorption is also important in the biological arena where, for example, it mediates in cell adhesion processes. Control of the structure of an adsorbed layer is therefore of paramount importance to the colloid scientist. Equally important however, is the ability to probe the arrangement of the molecules in the adsorbed layer and to extract quantitative information from what might well be a complex, multi-component system. In these respects small-angle neutron scattering (SANS) is certainly a successful technique.
