Stimuli‐Responsive Colloidal Systems from Mixed Brush‐Coated Nanoparticles

Abstract

We report on the application of mixed polymer brushes to the reversible in situ switching colloidal systems (suspensions of responsive 200 nm in diameter particles in individual solvents and immiscible liquids). We used mixed copolymer brushes to fabricate responsive nanoparticles and employed the particles to prepare responsive colloidal systems, which demonstrated drastic transformation/switching of material properties upon external stimuli. The interaction between the particles themselves and the particles and their environment can be precisely tuned by a change of solvent and pH. We show that this behavior can be used for a reversible formation of particle aggregates, stabilization and switching between w/o and o/w emulsions, and regulation of the particle transport between immiscible liquids across the interface. We demonstrate an example of the application of the responsive colloids for the fabrication of ultrahydrophobic coatings with textured surfaces from aqueous dispersion, and no surfactant application, using the switching properties of the responsive particles.

Smart surfaces with switchable superoleophilicity and superoleophobicity in aqueous media: toward controllable oil/water separation

“…Because of the nature of the grafting of the block copolymers via the pyridyl groups in the P2VP blocks, the grafted block copolymer layer can be considered as a mixed polymer brush of P2VP and PDMS chains with broad distribution. 33 Scanning electron microscopy measurements were carried out to characterize the surface morphologies of the textile before and after these treatments. The raw textile typically had ribbon-like fibers of about 40 mm in width and 5 mm in thickness with relatively smooth surfaces (Figure 1b).…”

“…This treatment can be conducted at room temperature and does not involve the use of extreme heating or organic solvent washing processes. 33 The reversible cycles can be repeated many times without any change in the responsive property (Figure 2c). The easy reversal of the wetting characteristics of the functionalized textile can be attributed to the highly flexible PDMS of the grafted copolymers.…”

Binary Mixed Homopolymer Brushes Tethered to Cellulose Nanocrystals: A Step Towards Compatibilized Polyester Blends

“…hybrid materials can find applications from self-cleaning materials 4 to sensing 5 and in biotechnology. 6 Generally, they can be obtained by applying either a "grafting from", or a "grafting onto" approach, but only the second involves polymers of known molecular characteristics.…”

Self‐Storage: A Novel Family of Stimuli‐Responsive Polymer Materials for Optical and Electrochemical Switching

“…[ 1 ] Booming development of polymer science allows these materials to be designed with abundant types and also versatile functions. [ 2 ] There are quite a few families in this fi eld, for instance, gels, [ 3 ] micelles, [ 4 ] colloids, [ 5 ] polymer brushes, [ 6 ] and the like. Some applications, such as delivering drugs, [ 7 ] tissue engineering, [ 8 ] diagnosis, [ 9 ] sensing, [ 10 ] and self-healing, [ 11 ] always regard SRPMs as ideal candidates.…”