COLL 365 |
| Andrew A. Brown, Melville Laboratory - Department of Chemistry, Melville Laboratory - Department of Chemistry, University of Cambridge, Lensfield Road, Cambridge, CB3 1EW, United Kingdom |
| Polymer brushes have been widely used to tailor surface properties such as wettability, biocompatibility, corrosion resistance and friction. The advantage of polymer brushes over other surface modification methods (e.g. self-assembled monolayers) is their mechanical and chemical robustness, coupled with a high degree of synthetic flexibility towards the introduction of a variety of functionality. Ideally, the synthetic method to functionalise surfaces with polymer brushes, should allow full control over the thickness, density and composition of the polymer films, while at the same time be compatible with substrates that are used in polymeric devices. Surface-initiated polymerizations of polymer brushes (or grafting from method) has been very successful in this controlled growth and a variety of polymer brushes has been grown using different "living" polymerization conditions. Brushes can be grown from planar surfaces or particles, from polymers and from inorganic/metallic substrates. Polymer brushes can be used to prepare fully protein resistant properties, but by growing 'smart' polymers such as PNIPAM or charged brushes, surfaces with reversible characteristics can be fabricated. Here, we will discuss surfaces which can be switched from hydrophilic to hydrophobic using temperature or pH switches. We will also demonstrate reversible collapse of brushes, as a first step towards using polymer brushes as nanoactuators. |
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“Smart” Polymers on Surfaces and Colloids
2:00 PM-5:20 PM, Tuesday, March 30, 2004 Marriott -- Grand Ballroom J, Oral
Division of Colloid and Surface Chemistry |