Mesoporous Thin Films, Zwitterionic Monomers, and Iniferter-Initiated Polymerization: Polymerization in a Confined Space

Abstract

Polymer modification of mesoporous materials is a relevant topic for applications from sensing and separation to drug delivery. Especially the combination of structure and responsive, charged polymer functionalization opens new possibilities, such as gating of drug release. Thereby, zwitterionic polymers are interesting, because of their antifouling characteristics and their influence on ionic permselectivity. The control on polymerization in confinement of a mesopore including spatial polymer location is crucial for the resulting mesopore function such as ionic permselectivity. The amount of generated polymer and polymerization kinetics should be influenced by the confinement of mesopores: Diffusion is limited by the pore size, pore connectivity, and wall charge. These parameters influence termination, which depends on radical concentration and proximity. Concerning the total surface area, the size of the internal surface area of mesoporous materials largely dominates over the size of the outer surface a...