Adsorption of random copolymers onto heterogeneous nanostructures

ORAL

Abstract

Previous studies on polymer adsorption onto flat surfaces showed that the monomer density profile in the adsorbed layers is dependent upon the attraction strength between the wall and the polymers, polymer bulk concentration and solvent selectivity. For a solution of polymers with regularly distributed sticky monomers near a flat surface it was predicted that the morphologies of the adsorbed layers result from the competition between the average nearest distance between the sticky sites on the polymer chain and that between the substrate sticky sites. In this talk we analyze the adsorption of random copolymers with hydrophobic and hydrophilic groups onto nanoparticles with a heterogeneous surface. We show that the optimal composition of the random copolymers to encapsulate the nanoparticles is determined by the interplay between adsorption energy, polymer composition and solvent selectivity. There is a strong correlation between the sequences of the adsorbed polymer chains, indicating that the surface is able to pick certain subsets out of the randomly shuffled sequences. Our study shows that copolymers with similar compositions encapsulate numerous types of surface patterns fairly effectively.

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Presenters

  • Trung Nguyen

    Materials Science and Engineering, Northwestern Univ, Materials Science and Engineering, Northwestern University

Authors

  • Trung Nguyen

    Materials Science and Engineering, Northwestern Univ, Materials Science and Engineering, Northwestern University

  • Ting Xu

    Univ of California - Berkeley, Department of Materials Science and Engineering, University of California, Berkeley, University of California, Berkeley, Materials Science and Engineering, Univ of California - Berkeley, Materials Science & Engineering, Univ of California - Berkeley, Materials Science and Enginering, UC Berkeley

  • Monica Olvera De La Cruz

    Northwestern University, Department of Materials Science and Engineering, Northwestern University, Material Sci & Eng., Northwestern Universituy, Material Sci. & Eng., Northwestern University, Materials Science and Engineering, Northwestern Univ, Chemistry, Materials Science and Engineering, Northwestern University, Northwestern Univ, Materials Science and Engineering, Northwestern University