Multifunctional nanolayers via polymer brush approach: Synthesis and characterization

The strong effect of boundary surfaces on a material's performance is generally recognized. This is why in order to get materials with the desired performance, their surfaces are often modified before use. Ultrathin polymer films grafted to the surface can dramatically alter the surface properties of a substrate, such as conductivity, lubrication, adhesion, wettability, friction and biocompatibility. Moreover, if several functional polymers are used for the grafting, hybrid polymer layers can be synthesized and surfaces with responsive properties can be obtained.; The ultimate goal of the current study is to fabricate and characterize nanolayers via polymer brush approach to modify surface properties of organic and inorganic substrates. Substrates were modified with polymer brushes using "grafting to", "grafting from" and physisorption techniques. The initial part of the investigation deals with the development and understanding of a "universal platform" to modify substrates using a macromolecular anchoring layer approach. It was demonstrated that the approach worked effectively on PET substrates. Finally, polymer brushes were successful fabricated to tune wettability of surfaces, develop stable silver/polymer nanocomposites and self-cleaning surfaces.