Structurally controllable anisotropic polymer brushes and their application in antifouling nanocoatings

Abstract

Polymer brushes have garnered widespread attention for their potential applications in some emerging fields such as antifouling coating, drug delivery and high-efficiency catalyst. However, the difficulties in precisely controlling the structure and composition of polymer brushes severely degraded their physicochemical properties and chemical conformation. Herein, we developed an effective strategy to prepare structurally controllable atom transfer radical polymerization (ATRP) macroinitiator using multi-site polydienes as the polymer backbone and chlorine as the modifier. The amount of grafting allyl chloride groups could be effectively adjusted by regulating the reaction time, thereby achieving the programming ATRP macromolecular initiator with high-fidelity terminal chlorine groups. Thereinto, with chlorinated polydienes as the ATRP macroinitiator and polymer backbone, and resultant polystyrene as the side chains, the well-defined polystyrene brushes bearing controlled worm-like and rod-like structures were obtained. Benefiting from the branched structure, polystyrene brushes exhibited low intrinsic viscosity, compact molecular dimensions, and high terminal group functionality. Further, we prepared novel a superhydrophobic nanomaterial, namely, SiO2 nanoparticles (NPs)-polymer brushes, which demonstrated high non-wetting and excellent antifouling performance. Consequently, the approach and results collectively provide a promising avenue and perspective for preparing brush-like polymers with precisely designed structures and functionality.