Brushing up functional materials

By Shuanhong Ma, Xiaoqin Zhang, Bo Yu, Feng Zhou. NPG Asia Materials, 2019

170 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Surface-grafting polymer brushes (SPB), which are used in a versatile technique to easily realize surface modifications, can be commonly used to change the inherent surface physical/chemical properties of materials. In particular, producing functional polymer brushes with well-defined chemical configurations, densities, architectures, and thicknesses on a material surface has become increasingly important in many fields. Achieving such goals is highly dependent on the progress of novel surface-grafting strategies, which are commonly based on surface-initiated polymerization (SIP) methods. On the other hand, practical applications have been given more attention since the SPB technique enables the engineering of materials with diverse functions. This review reports some new grafting strategies for generating polymer brush layers and then systematically summarizes research advances in the application of polymer brush-modified materials in multiple fields. Correspondingly, some necessary challenges of the SPB technique are unreservedly pointed out, with consideration given to its real applications in the future. The aim of this article is to tell readers how to engineer functional materials through SPB techniques and what can be done with polymer brushes in the future.Biomaterials: Brushing up on polymersAttaching long polymer molecules to a surface by one end creates a brush-like texture that can provide lubrication and reduce friction between moving parts. Feng Zhou and colleagues from the Lanzhou Institute of Chemical Physics, CAS, review the current approaches to surface-tethering these so-called polymer brushes and the key bottlenecks and challenges that remain to be overcome in the development of this technology. They compare grafting strategies, including using the non-covalent interaction between polymer and surface, adding an intermediate functional group to enable chemical coupling, and using a technique known as surface-initiated radical polymerization. These methods enable control of the brush’s density, architecture, and thickness, meaning the properties of the surface can be tuned. Surfaces with polymer brushes have applications in synthetic biomimetic materials and tissue engineering.Surface-grafting polymer brush (SPB) technique can be used to change the inherent physical/chemical properties of materials surface. Practical applications are paid more attention since SPB technique enables to decorate materials with diverse functions. This paper reviews the current grafting strategies to generate polymer brush layer on surface of solid materials with diverse geometric structures/sizes, and then systematically summarizes the recent research advances on application of polymer brushes-modified materials. Correspondingly, some key challenges of SPB technique with considering its real application in future are discussed. The aim to draft this paper is to tell the readers how to engineer functional materials by SPB technique.

Subfields: Biomedical Engineering, Electrical and Electronic Engineering, Surfaces, Coatings and Films

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/2e679c2f1a9c49a3c4155e26ad724f268ba3b2fe