Grafting from polymer surfaces general

In general, in the field of materials or condensed matter, the preparation of polymer brushes on solid surfaces is of great interest for surface modification and composite material preparation [4-6]. A number of model surface grafting techniques have been used on planar surfaces and particles and have been the subject of previous reviews. While a munber of polymer brush preparation methods have been reported using physisorption or chemisorption or so-called grafting onto methods, the emphasis of this review is on surface-initiated polymerization (SIP) methods or grafting from methods. 

The types of surface moieties stabilizing the latex also are important. The binders used in waterborne coatings are not the hard-sphere, model polymer colloids used in adsorption studies. They are soft (low glass transition temperature), deformable moieties that are stabilized by grafted polymer fragments [e.g., (hydroxyethyl)cellulose (16) or poly(vinyl alcohol)] or by terpolymerized acid monomers extended from the surface of the colloid (IT). Such stabilizers produce a far less hydrophobic surface than is generally depicted in colloid texts. This situation is particularly true if the composition of the latex is predominately methacrylate or vinyl acetate, as they are in most U.S. commercial products. 

The grafting-from technique involves the immobilization of initiators onto the substrate followed by in situ surface-initiated polymerization to generate a tethered polymeric phase. This approach has generally become the most attractive way to prepare thick, covalently tethered polymer brushes with a high grafting density. A variety of synthesis methods such as radical chain transfer reaction,reverse ATRP, living anionic surface-initiated polymerization, ATRP, " dispersion polymerization, and... 

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