Novel Biomembrane‐Mimicking Polymer Surface with Environmental Responsiveness

Abstract

Summary: In this article, we designed and synthesized novel segmented poly(carbonate urethane)s containing both hydrophobic fluorinated alkyl group and hydrophilic phosphatidylcholine polar head groups on the side chain. The contact angle measurement, XPS, together with ATR‐IR investigation indicated a reversible overturn of the phosphatidylcholine groups with the movement of the hydrophobic fluorinated alkyl groups when the samples were treated in dry air or water. The change in environment from air to water induced a reorganization of the surface in order to minimize the interfacial free energy, resulting in a macroscopic change of surface wettability. The good environmental responsiveness of such biomembrane‐mimicking films may find successful applications as biomaterials.Environmentally responsive surface using FPCPCU50 as an example; FPCPCU50 coated on aligned carbon nanotube film and dried in vacuum at 50 °C for 7 h and sample c treated in hot water at 80 °C for 1 h.imageEnvironmentally responsive surface using FPCPCU50 as an example; FPCPCU50 coated on aligned carbon nanotube film and dried in vacuum at 50 °C for 7 h and sample c treated in hot water at 80 °C for 1 h.

Design and Creation of Superwetting/Antiwetting Surfaces

“…[145,146] To verify this idea, a type of Y-shaped molecule composed of hydrophobic polystyrene and hydrophilic poly(acrylic acid) (PAA) chains was designed and grafted to a silicon surface. [147,148] After the film was treated with toluene, a good solvent for PS, the top surface layer was enriched with PS arms, whereas the PAA arms collapsed into cores.…”

Structures and Synthesis of Zwitterionic Polymers

“…Nevertheless, the reaction of diisocyanates with zwitterionic diols has been applied occasionally [5,21], mostly for polymeric phosphobetaines (Figure 7a) [376][377][378][379]. Still generally, post-polymerization reactions have been preferred for preparing zwitterionic polyurethanes (see Section 3.2).…”

Simulation of self-assembly behaviour of fluorinated phospholipid molecules in aqueous solution by dissipative particle dynamics method

“…The reasons for the formation of fluorinated doublechain phospholipid bilayer might be attributed to the hydrogen bonds between hydrophilic chains and water, as well as between water and water of the hydrated layer [27]. In our previous studies [11,12], we did not observe that the fluorinated single-chain phospholipid could form biomembrane structure on polyurethane surfaces, even though the concentration of the phospholipid was very high. This is in agreement with the simulation results.…”

“…The large improvement in biocompatibility of the phosphatidylcholine polymer is critical to suppress protein adsorption [5 -7], and limits other biological responses such as platelet adhesive, complement activation and inflammatory [8 -10]. In our previous studies, we have synthesised a series of fluorinated single-chain phospholipid polyurethanes, which displayed good biocompatibility for polyurethanes [11,12]. However, the protein adsorption could not be completely suppressed due to the absence of real phospholipid membrane formed on the polyurethane surfaces.…”