Polymer decoration

Beside planar surfaces, Patten et al. [310-312] and Hallensleben et al. [313, 314, 322] prepared weU-defined nanocomposites by ATRSIP of from silica and gold nanoparticles. After spin-coating a solution of the polymer decorated particles onto mica, Hallensleben was able to image the single particles with the individual grafted polymer chains (Pig. 9.33). 

A polymer/monomer (polymer/repeat-unit or polymer/macrocycle) switch may become of practical importance where a polymer decorated with certain groups has specific size-dependent properties that the monomeric units do not have. The modulation of the conversion between polymeric and monomeric (or macrocyclic) states would also result in the modulation of these properties. Moreover, such size switches, represented by polymerization/depolymerization processes that operate under the control of external events, are examples of environmentally-friendly recyclable polymers (reduction of waste treatment). As well, if the polymer has low solubility and the polymer/monomer switch can work in spite of this, then it becomes possible to reversibly generate a precipitating (solid) polymeric material from a liquid solution of monomer. 

Hiergeist, C. and Lipowsky, R. (1996) Elastic properties of polymer decorated membranes. /. Phys. II France, 6, 1465-1481. 

Instead of being used as fillers to enhance the performance of polymers, graphene and its derivatives can be applied as 2D templates for polymer decoration via covalent or noncovalent functionalization. The polymers here are used to improve the solubility of the graphene derivatives, and offer additional functionality to the resulting graphene-pol5mier composites. 

Wittmann JC, Lotz B (1985) Polymer decoration the orientation of polymer folds as revealed by the crystallization of polymer vapors. J Polym Sci, Polym Phys Ed 23 205-211 Wunderlich B, Grebo wig J (1984) Thermotropic mesophases and mesophase transitions of linear, flexible macromolecules. Adv Polym Sci 60/61 1-59 Zhou QF, Li HM, Feng XD (1987) Synthesis of liquid-crystalline polyacrylates with laterally substituted mesogens. Macromolecules 20 233-234... 

An interface between two incompatible polymers, decorated by block copolymer molecules M. 

Scheme 2 Representative structure of synthetic polymers decorated with sugar side-chains from type I unsaturated sugar monomers.

Figure 8.22 ROMP polymers decorated with a polyguanidinium block mimic protein transduction domains and promote polymer internalization into mammalian cells.

To prepare membranes with artificial nanochannels, one can start with several polymer materials such as polyimide (PI), polycarbonate (PC), and polyethylene terephthalate (PET). A prerequisite to apply these kinds of polymers for nanochannel fabrication is that they are easy to process and susceptible to different etching techniques to produce nano-sized channels of different morphologies. Current methods for this purpose include ion-track-etching, electrochemical etching, and laser techniques. Once the nanochannels have been produced, one needs to functionalize the channel inner wall to obtain different functions. Following are some examples of polymer decorated nanochannels. 

Essentially all these experimental methods apply when we deal with high-porosity multipore membranes, which are the majority of the cases. However, polymer brush decoration of single nanometric pores on macroscopic membranes has been examined lately [8]. A quite interesting method for the characterization of this system is the measmement of the ionic current that flows through the channel in an electrolyte solution under different electric potential differences. The current-voltage (TV) response of the system can be correlated to the conductance of the polymer-decorated channel and consequently to the effective free cross section of the pore-brush structure. 

The thermal behavior (Figure 10.8) exhibited a clear result all branches longer than ethyl display nearly identical behavior. When increasing steric bulk, even the polymer decorated with an enormous adamantyl group is able to crystallize. Although there is a slight depression in peak melting temperature, the behavior of the bulky substitutes closely resembles that of... 

J. C. Wittmann and B. Lotz. Polymer decoration of layer silicates crystallographic interactions at the polyethylene-talc interface. Journal of Materials Science, 21 2 (1986), 659-668. 

Figure 8.12 Polymer decoration epitaxial crystallization on the fold surface. Polyethylene vapors were deposited on the surface of single crystals of polyoxymethylene (POM) at room temperature. The resulting PE decoration is made of edge-on lamellae oriented normal to the POM growth faces, with the deposited PE chains parallel to the growth front. The distance between POM fold planes (0.386 nm) imposes the monoclinic (010) PE contact plane, in which chains are separated by =0.4 nm [68].

Tetracyanoquinodimethane (TCNQ), which is famous for its supramolecular charge-transfer complexation, entered polymer science some time ago [109]. Here, main-chain polymers were introduced [110, 111], including T(2NQ polymers decorated with dendrons [112]. 

Some special examples are also present in the literature [224, 225]. Helical polymers were obtained by interaction of redox-active copper centers with a rather rigid and bent polyphenanthroline [225]. Polymer decoration with cyanoferrates has also been achieved [226, 227], which leads us directly to next section. 

Kinsinger MI, Buck ME, Abbott NL, Lynn DM (2010) Immobilization of polymer-decorated liquid crystal droplets on chemically tailored surfaces. Langmuir 26 10234—10242... 

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