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Carbonaceous deposits coming from the fuel and the lubricant are known to form over time at critical locations in an engine. In general, the deposits have an adverse effect on four functional areas which are the fuel metering system, the intake system, the lubrication system and the combustion chambers. These deposits can degrade vehicle performance and drive-ability, reduce fuel economy, increase fuel consumption and pollutant emissions and may lead to the destruction of the engine. In order to remedy these problems, detergent- dispersant additives are used in fuels and lubricants to avoid or decrease deposit adhesion on metallic surfaces and prevent from deposit aggregation. These products are mainly polymer surfactants and in this work, poly-iso- butenyl-succinimide of different structures have been studied. Firstly, 'comb like' polymers have been synthesised. Then they have been compared to classical di-bloc additives in terms of performance and action mechanism. These additives are adsorbed from their hydrophilic polyamine part on the acidic functions of the carbon black surface chosen as an engine deposit model and on the aluminium oxide function of an aluminium powder chosen as an engine wall model. The adsorption increases with temperature on the two solids. Their affinity with the solid surface increases with the length of the hydrophilic part. In the same way, changing the di-bloc structure for a comb like one lead to a better adsorption. At low concentration, it has been shown that the adsorption phenomenon was irreversible, due to the polymer structure of the polar part. Depending on the space required by the hydrophilic part on the solid surface, a more of less dense monolayer is formed. At higher concentrations, an important increase of the adsorbed amount appears. This phenomenon is totally reversible showing that the interactions additive / additive are weak. The dispersing efficiency of a comb like structure is better than a di-bloc one as the hydrophilic parts are forced to huddle together, decreasing the solid surface required and enhancing the stretching of hydrophobic parts. (author) 136 refs.