Wetting, adhesion at other objects and adhesion of colors is determined by the chemical and physical structure of a surface layer which is less than a nm thick. An analysis of chemical, heterogeneous surface layers in this dimension is a big challenge for modern analytics.
Chemical functionalities must be examined in a concentration of the size of
10-10 mol/cm2 in contrast to a raw material which is normally at
least 104 times more concentrated.
The combination of surface chemistry with instrumental methods offers effective instruments
for the determination of functional groups at polymer surfaces. The idea behind this method
called labelling or derivatization is that a certain functional group or a class of
functional groups is specifically reacted with an agent which can easily be analysed by the
instrumental method.