Monolayer equivalent, soluble polymer

Film deposition refers to the preparation of polymer (organic, organometallic, and metal coordination) films which contain the equivalent of many monomolecular layers of electroactive sites. As many as 10 monolayer-equivalents may be present [9]. The polymer film is held on the electrode surface by a combination of chemisorptive and solubility effects. Since the polymer film bonding is rather nonspecific, this approach can be used to modify almost any type of... 

The driving force for adsorption for a homopolymer is the ability of the polymer to screen the unfavorable interactions between the immiscible solvents. The polymer layer thickness is generally equivalent to its solution radius of gyration and is equivalent to one or two monolayers. If the polymer has a very different solubility in the two phases, i.e., it is much more soluble in one phase compared with the other, the volume fraction profile attains a high plateau value in the phase in which the polymer is more soluble but falls off monotonically as the interface region is approached and traversed. 

As biological systems have always been an inspiration for scientists, intracellular compartments (such as lysosomes or mitochondria) also have their artificial equivalents in polymer vesicles, called polymersomes. Polymersomes are spherical compartments with a bi- or monolayer membrane, generated by self-assembly of di- or triamphiphilic block copolymers in diluted aqueous conditions. To favor the formation of structures such as polymersomes, it is necessary to have a hydrophilic fraction of the copolymer mass of 25-40%, and polymer concentration above the critical micellar concentration. Other parameters that affect the self-assembly process, and therefore the final architecture of the polymer supramolecular assemblies, are the molecular weight of the copolymer (Af ), block lengths, solubility, and glass transition temperature (Tg) [21,22], The relative mass or volume fraction of each block is a key parameter in the formation of a self-assembled structure with a certain membrane curvature, and ultimately, with a specific architecture. The of the copolymer (and thus the block lengths) dictates the membrane thickness and polymersome properties, such as membrane fluidity, stabihty, and permeabihty [21,74],... 

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