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•Comprehensive review on interaction of polymer brush with surfactants.•Studying the effect of different surfactants on polymer brush and their properties.•Studying the responsiveness ...of polymer brush with surfactant with respect to light.•Identification of challenges to improve the surface properties of polymer brush.
Unique macromolecular structures known as polymer brushes are made of individual polymer chains that are free at one end and attached to a solid surface at the other. Polymer brushes show some fascinating characteristics when compared to other polymer materials, due to which they are used in various applications like drug delivery, antifouling coating, antibacterial coating for biomedical devices, and especially as a responsive material where surface topology, architecture, and composition can be changed by changing the external environment. Significant progress in surface and interface engineering has been made possible by surface-initiated controlled radical polymerization techniques. All these properties can also be enhanced by using surfactants. Surfactants when interacting with polymer brush shows changes in thickness, wettability, roughness, etc., depending on the type of polymer brush and surfactants. Surfactants help in boosting the topology of the brush structure. This review article will initially discuss about polymer brushes and surfactants separately and then discuss the interactions involved between them and their possible explanations.
Autonomous and heteronomous switchable selectivity for electrochemical reactions was examined in an electrolyte solution containing pyrocatechol (PC) and dopamine (DA) using a fabricated thermo- and ...photo-responsive poly(N-isopropylacrylamide) (PNIPA)-modified cup-stacked carbon nanofiber (CSCNF) electrode. PNIPA can be autonomously and reversibly switched by environmental temperature changes between hydrophilic expanded coil structure and hydrophobic collapsed globule structure. CSCNFs as the electrode materials can effectively convert absorbed external near-infrared (NIR) light into heat. Although the molecular size of DA is larger and the octanol-water partition coefficient of DA is smaller than those of PC, both PC and DA could permeate to the CSCNF electrode surface through the expanded coil structure of the PNIPA layer at 25 ˚C, which temperature is below the lower critical solution temperature (LCST), causing their electrochemical signal readout. In contrast, transport of DA to the electrode surface was selectively suppressed by exposing the polymer to temperature at 45 ˚C, which value is above the LCST, or NIR light irradiation (> 940 nm, ca. 77 mW cm–2) to the CSCNF electrode surface even at 25 ˚C due to the steric hindrance and hydrophobicity of collapsed globule structure of the polymer layer. This resulted in the preferential electrochemical signal of PC. The switchable sensitivity of the electrode also allowed it to be successfully demonstrated for the simultaneous determination of PC and DA even at a single transducer, though electrode arrays with different sensitivity and selectivity are widely used for the determination of multiple chemicals simultaneously.
•Selectivity control of electrochemical responses by external stimuli.•Thermo- and photo-switchable electrodes modified with phase transition polymers.•Chemical separation and determination of catechol derivatives.
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•An effective strategy is provided for polymer brush/lubricant coating system design.•The system exhibits enhanced stability in both static immersion and dynamic scouring.•The system ...shows a promising antifouling effect in real oceanic environments.
Bioinspired slippery surfaces have garnered significant attention as promising solutions to mitigate biofouling. Unlike traditional lubricant-infused porous surfaces, recent research has focused on the integration of lubricants within polymer brush-grafted surfaces. The combination of polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) polymer brush and silicone oil has gradually become the most prevalent choice due to their outstanding chemical affinity. However, this conventional coating system also has the potential for improvement to meet the needs of long-lasting and efficient marine antifouling, including i) precisely designing the polymer brush’s chemical structure to match the polarity of a specific lubricant enhances their chemical affinity, and ii) appropriately reduce the coating system’s surface energy to improve the fouling desorption performance. Here, we introduce a systematically engineered polymer brush/lubricant coating system that incorporates fluorinated polysiloxane and perfluoropolyether fluid. This novel coating system exhibits enhanced adhesion strength coupled with reduced surface energy, resulting in superior stability and omniphobic properties. Additionally, it showcases excellent corrosion resistance and significantly deters marine microorganism adhesion, achieving reductions of 98.8 % for P. tricornutum and 99.8 % for Bacillus sp.. Marine field trials, conducted over a 90-day static immersion period, confirm the remarkable antifouling performance, which surpasses most existing slippery coatings. Moreover, under dynamic conditions, organisms adhering for 150 days are readily dislodged by shear force. These findings underscore the pivotal role of systematic design in polymer brush/lubricant coating systems for the advancement of high-performance slippery surfaces tailored for marine antifouling applications.
A facile method to improve CO2 separation performance of polymer is to incorporate CO2-philic particles. In this study, sulfonated polymer brush functionalized graphene oxide nanosheets (S-GO) as ...fillers, with sulfonated polymer brush as CO2-philic chain anchored on GO were introduced into SPEEK membrane at nanoscale level to enhance CO2 selectivity of the membrane. The S-GO enhanced the interface compatibility as shown by SEM, and the “sieve-in-a-cage” morphology in MMMs disappeared by the introduction of CO2-philic polymer brush. Benefiting from the introduction of brush at the interface, on one hand, the CO2-philic brush on S-GO helped to widen CO2 transport pathways verified by the increased radius of free volume cavity (r3) and the fractional free volume (FFV), which resulted in the increase in gas permeability. On the other hand, the addition of the polymer brush on GO increased CO2-philic sites, which imparted enhancement in the CO2 solubility selectivity. Besides, the transport of gases through the GO nanosheets created the increment in CO2 diffusion selectivity. SPEEK/S-GO MMMs showed pronounced enhancements in both CO2 permeability and CO2/CH4(N2) selectivity. Specifically, for the SPEEK/S-GO membrane doped with 8 wt% S-GO nanosheets, the CO2 permeability reached 1327 Barrer, and CO2/CH4 selectivity increased by 179% in comparison with the SPEEK control membrane, surpassing the 2008 Robeson upper bound. The distinctive virtues of polymer brush functionalized filler may be extended to fabricate a series of MMMs for efficient molecule separation.
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•CO2-philic polymer brush functionalized graphene oxide nanosheets were prepared.•CO2-philic polymer brush functionalized GO was incorporated to fabricate MMMs.•Interface compatibility of MMMs was enhanced by addition of CO2-philic brush.•CO2 transport pathways were widened due to the presence of CO2-philic brush.•Gas separation performance of MMMs surpassed Robeson upper bound in 2008.
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Polyzwitterions as a promising class of materials are often used to construct antifouling surfaces with optimized conformation and compositions for a wide variety of antifouling ...applications. While numerous zwitterionic polymers have been identified for their antifouling capacity, the exact relationship among molecular structure, surface hydration property, and antifouling performance of zwitterionic polymers at different scales still remains elusive.
we first designed and synthesized a new zwitterionic monomer of 3-(4-(methacryloyloxy)-1-methylpiperidin-1-ium-1-yl)-propane-1-sulfonate (MAMPS), then used MAMPS monomers to fabricate into homogenous polymer brushes on Au substrate using SI-ATRP and heterogeneous double-network (DN) hydrogels combining with Agar network via one-pot, heating-cooling-photopolymerization method, and finally evaluated their antifouling ability to resist the adsorption of protein/cell/bacteria on the two different polymer forms at microscopic and macroscopic scales.
For microscopic polyMAMPS brushes, they exhibited excellent resistance to nonspecific protein adsorption from both undiluted blood serum/plasma (0.3–5 ng/cm2), cell adhesion up to 3 days, and clinically relevant bacterial attachment for 72 h at the optimal film thicknesses of 20–40 nm. For macroscopic Agar/polyMAMPS DN hydrogels, they also exhibited approximately 96% less protein adhesion than tissue culture polystyrene (TCPS). Different structured materials consisting of polyMAMPS at both micro- and macro-scales demonstrate its excellent, intrinsic antifouling property, which could be related to their highly water binding character of zwitterionic groups. PolyMAMPS materials, alternative to commonly used poly(sulfobetaine methacrylate) (polySBMA) and poly(carboxybetaine methacrylate) (polyCBMA) zwitterions, hold great promise for antifouling designs and applications.
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Recent progress in surface-initiated polymerization enables the deliberate polymer modification of nanoscopic surfaces with high levels of precision. This has given rise to the ...development of brush particle-based materials (sometimes referred to as ‘hairy nanoparticles’) that are formed by tethering of polymer chains to the surface of nanoparticle-like objects. Brush particles have attracted interest as model systems to understand the effect of surface modification on the structure and interactions in polymer modified colloidal systems (which play a role across fields as diverse as functional coatings, cosmetics, foods or pharmaceuticals) but also as building blocks for the assembly of ‘one-component hybrid materials’ that exhibit unprecedented property combinations, not realizable in classical composite materials. This review presents a summary and analysis of the developments in ‘particle brush materials’. The evolution of synthetic methodologies from the original pioneering work to emerging trends and opportunities in the field of brush synthesis is presented first. Subsequently, the effect of brush architecture on the structure, interaction and assembly of brush particles both with and without a matrix is discussed. Finally, recent advances in the development of functional hybrid materials with applications in energy, catalysis, sensing and other areas is presented.
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•A facile method to fabricate high-adhesive copper coating on polyethylene terephthalate surface can be achieved.•Effects of Ag electron structure and surface topography on adhesive ...force of plated coating is investigated.•The maximum effective thickness is 3.6 μm.
Electroless plating on polymer surface is a low-cost process for surface metallization, but it exhibits low adhesive force and complex production process, which makes it difficult for practical application. We employ a facile method combined with novel catalyst solution printing and electroless plating to fabricate high-adhesion copper coating on (polyethylene terephthalate (PET). The catalyst solution is a mixture of AgNO3, PVA, KH550, alcohol and deionized water. On the one hand, hydrophilic PVA and hydrophobic KH550 condense to helical conformation catalyst solution, which could synergistically absorb Ag. On the other hand, the two phases separation structure facilitate the formation of roughness surface. As a result, the catalyst solution can form highly active polymer brush/Ag particle structure on the PET surface, and realize to modify and activate PET simultaneously. Region-selective copper coating could plate on PET surface, the maximum effective thickness is 3.6 μm, rupturework is 4.5 J/m2, adhesion is 5B, electrical resistivity is 2.3 × 10−6 Ω cm. While maintaining reliability even after over 6 times of folding test and 1000 times of bending. Our results provide the underlying insights needed to guide the design of the fabrication of metal polymer.
Surface modifications by polymers are becoming increasingly important for various applications
ranging from biotechnology to advanced microelectronics. Recent successful applications of living
...radical polymerization (LRP) made it possible to graft various low-polydispersity polymers including
simple homopolymers, end-functionalized polymers, block/random/gradient copolymers, and functional
polymers. At the same time, this technique has brought about a striking increase of graft density.
Graft chains in such a high-density polymer brush were found to be highly extended in good solvent,
even to the order of their full lengths. It was also found that a high-density polymer brush
has characteristic properties, in both swollen and dry states, quite different and unpredictable from
those of the semi-dilute or moderately dense polymer brushes previously studied. This review highlights
the recent development of surface-initiated LRP and the structures, properties, and potential applications
of thereby obtainable high-density polymer brushes. It is believed that surface-initiated LRP is
opening up a new route to “precision” surface modification.
Surface modification is of great significance in improving the interfacial properties of bioimplants, especially friction and wear of artificial joint materials (e. g. polyetheretherketone, PEEK). ...Herein, inspired by the layered structure and gradient modulus of natural articular joint, hydrogel-polymer brush bilayered coating was developed to functionalize rigid PEEK (PBHP). The resulting PBHP material showed similar layered structure with natural articular joint. The load-bearing hydrogel layer and lubricating polymer brush layer exhibited corresponding moduli with natural cartilage and superficial biomacromolecules layer, respectively. Tribological tests demonstrated that the obtained material showed outstanding lubrication (friction coefficient<0.07), high load-bearing capability (load>20 N) and excellent wear-resistant capability (sliding cycles>10,000). The “hard PEEK-elastic hydrogel-soft polymer brush” layered material may find potential applications in artificial joint replacement.
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