Issue 14, 2015

Surface-initiated Cu(0) mediated controlled radical polymerization (SI-CuCRP) using a copper plate

Abstract

Surface engineering with polymer brushes has become one of the most versatile techniques to tailor surface properties of substrates for a broad variety of (bio-) technological applications. We report on a new facile approach to prepare defined and dense polymer brushes on planar substrates by surface-initiated Cu(0) mediated controlled radical polymerization (SI-CuCRP) of numerous vinyl monomers using a copper plate at room temperature. The fabrication of a variety of homo-, block, gradient and patterned polymer brushes as well as polymer brush arrays is demonstrated. The SI-CuCRP was found to be strictly surface-confined, of highly living character, proceeds remarkably fast and results in polymer brushes of very high grafting densities. The brush layer thickness can be modulated by the polymerization time or by the distance of the copper plate to the modified substrate. As the copper plate can be reused multiple times, no additional copper salts are added and only minimal amount of chemicals is needed, the simple and low-cost experimental conditions allows researchers from various fields to prepare tailored polymer brush surfaces for their needs.

Graphical abstract: Surface-initiated Cu(0) mediated controlled radical polymerization (SI-CuCRP) using a copper plate

Supplementary files

Article information

Article type
Paper
Submitted
22 Jan 2015
Accepted
16 Feb 2015
First published
17 Feb 2015
This article is Open Access
Creative Commons BY license

Polym. Chem., 2015,6, 2726-2733

Author version available

Surface-initiated Cu(0) mediated controlled radical polymerization (SI-CuCRP) using a copper plate

T. Zhang, Y. Du, F. Müller, I. Amin and R. Jordan, Polym. Chem., 2015, 6, 2726 DOI: 10.1039/C5PY00093A

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