Approaches to Modification of Maleic Anhydride Copolymers with Applications to Antifouling and Water Purification

Precise control over structure and tailoring of chemical moieties along the chain are the keys to creating polymeric materials with advanced functionality. We present an approach based on maleic anhdyride copolymers allowing facile modification with various chemical groups as embodied in two systems: a polymer network capable of catalytic degradation of organophosphates and antibiofouling coatings. Through the use of crosslinking, which could be controlled via several synthetic pathways, hydrogels containing hydroxamic acid groups were made that allowed the gel to be used for water purification applications. Kinetic studies of the performance of the gels in degrading the model compound dimethyl nitrophenyl phosphate (DMNP) were performed. For antifouling purposes, a systematic study of the structure-property relationships of several sulfobetaines and the ability to resist fouling by fluorescent-labeled proteins was conducted. It was also found that by varying the comonomer in the system, it was possible to control hydrophobic/hydrophilic interactions and adhere the polymers to substrates as thin-layer coatings.