Construction of antifouling fluorinated polymer brush via activators regenerated by electron transfer ATRP and thiol-epoxy click reaction

Abstract

In this work, fluorine containing polymer brushes was grafted on the functionalized stainless steel (SS) by activators regenerated by electron transfer atom transfer radical polymerization (ARGET-ATRP) and thiol-epoxy click reaction. PGMA brushes would be grafted on SS by coating the sheets with brominated polydopamine (PDA) as a reactive under-layer, and subsequently surface-initiate ARGET-ATRP of glycidyl methacrylate (GMA). Then the short-fluorinated alkyl chains were anchored on the PGMA backbones based on the click reaction between epoxy groups of PGMA and 1H, 1H, 2H, 2H-perfluorodecanethiol (PFDT), which endowed the surfaces of the polymers with low surface free energy. The surface compositions and morphologies of the functionalized SS have been characterized by attenuated total reflection-Fourier transform infrared (ATR-FTIR) spectroscopy, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), scanning electron microscope (SEM) and atomic force microscopy (AFM). The results of water contact angle analysis exhibited high hydrophobicity of the fluorinated polymer grafting modified SS surface. Bovine serum albumin (BSA) resistance performance of the functionalized SS was evaluated by BCA protein assay reagent, fluorescence microscope and XPS. The results exhibited that grafting fluoropolymer brushes modified SS with lower protein adsorption compared with the pristine SS surface, which might be served as promising environmentally friendly polymer antifouling coatings.