Novel brush coatings
were fabricated with glass surface-grafted
chains copolymerized using surface-initiated atom transfer radical
polymerization (SI-ATRP) from 2-(2-methoxyethoxy)ethyl methacrylate
(OEGMA188) and acrylamide (AAm), taken in different proportions. P(OEGMA188-co-AAm) brushes with AAm mole fraction >44% (determined
with XPS and TOF-SIMS spectroscopy) and nearly constant with the depth
copolymer composition (TOF-SIMS profiling) exhibit unusual temperature-induced
transformations: The contact angle of water droplets on P(OEGMA188-co-AAm) coatings increases by ∼45° with temperature,
compared to 17–18° for POEGMA188 and PAAm. The thickness
of coatings immersed in water and the morphology of coatings imaged
in air show a temperature response for POEGMA188 (using reflectance
spectroscopy and AFM, respectively), but this response is weak for
P(OEGMA188-co-AAm) and absent for PAAm. This suggests
mechanisms more complex than a simple transition between hydrated
loose coils and hydrophobic collapsed chains. For POEGMA188, the hydrogen
bonds between the ether oxygens of poly(ethylene glycol) and water
hydrogens are formed below the transition temperature T
c and disrupted above T
c when
polymer–polymer interactions are favored. Different hydrogen
bond structures of PAAm include free amide groups, cis-trans-multimers, and trans-multimers of amide groups.
Here, hydrogen bonds between free amide groups and water dominate
at T < T
c but structures
favored at T > T
c,
such
as cis-trans-multimers and trans-multimers of amide groups, can still be hydrated. The enhanced temperature-dependent
response of wettability for P(OEGMA188-co-AAm) with
a high mole fraction of AAm suggests the formation at T
c of more hydrophobic structures, realized by hydrogen
bonding between the ether oxygens of OEGMA188 and the amide fragments
of AAm, where water molecules are caged. Furthermore, P(OEGMA188-co-AAm) coatings immersed in pH buffer solutions exhibit
a ‘schizophrenic’ behavior in wettability, with transitions
that mimic LCST and UCST for pH = 3, LCST for pH = 5 and 7, and any
transition blocked for pH = 9.