Polymer brush

Polymer brushes are copolymers grafted so densely that the individual polymer chains have to stretch away from the substrate.

Physics

Grafted polymers exhibit a rich phase behavior:

• In good solvent, the brushes swell and stretch.

• In poor solvent shrinks the brush, if necessary to the extent that the closed film ruptures. It depends on the graft density creates a textured surface from single or combined clusters.

• Two-component brushes made of immiscible polymers show a pattern formation in the closed brush.

Application of polymer brushes

For use, the surface properties modified by the polymers are of interest. However, this is still a very new field of materials technology, so that there is not yet implemented many applications, most of these in the following applications are still the subject of research.

• Stabilization of colloids

• Modification of the surfaces of hydrophobic to hydrophilic character

• Preventing the adhesion of cell movies

• Biocompatibility

• Lubricant

• Macromolecular structure