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Frink LJD, van Swol F, Malanoski AP, Petsev DN. Film swelling and contaminant adsorption at polymer coated surfaces: Insights from density functional theory. J Chem Phys 2024; 161:114710. [PMID: 39301856 DOI: 10.1063/5.0225085] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/22/2024] [Accepted: 09/04/2024] [Indexed: 09/22/2024] Open
Abstract
Designing coatings and films that can protect surfaces is important in a wide variety of applications from corrosion prevention to anti-fouling. These systems are challenging from a modeling perspective because they are invariably multicomponent, which quickly leads to an expansive design space. At a minimum, the system has a substrate, a film (often composed of a polymeric material), a ubiquitous carrier solvent, which may be either a vapor or liquid phase, and one or more contaminants. Each component has an impact on the effectiveness of coating. This paper focuses on films that are used as a barrier to surface contamination, but the results also extend to surface coatings that are designed to extract a low density species from the fluid phase as in liquid chromatography. A coarse-grained model is developed using Yukawa potentials that encompasses both repulsive and attractive interactions among the species. Classical density functional theory calculations are presented to show how contaminant adsorption is controlled by the molecular forces in the system. Two specific vectors through the parameter space are considered to address likely experimental manipulations that change either the solvent or the polymer in a system. We find that all the adsorption results can be unified by considering an appropriate combination of molecular parameters. As a result, these calculations provide a link between molecular interactions and film performance and may serve to guide the rational design of films.
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Affiliation(s)
- Laura J Douglas Frink
- Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering and Center for Microengineered Materials, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, New Mexico 87131, USA
| | - Frank van Swol
- Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering and Center for Microengineered Materials, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, New Mexico 87131, USA
| | - Anthony P Malanoski
- United States Naval Research Laboratory, Center for Biomolecular Science and Engineering, Washington, D.C. 20375, USA
| | - Dimiter N Petsev
- Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering and Center for Microengineered Materials, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, New Mexico 87131, USA
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Li C, Zhang T, Yang Y, Tang P, Qiu F. Polymer Brushes Immersed in Two-Component Solvents with Pure Volume Exclusion: Effect of Solvent Molecular Shape. ACS OMEGA 2019; 4:12927-12937. [PMID: 31460419 PMCID: PMC6682017 DOI: 10.1021/acsomega.9b01800] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.4] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/18/2019] [Accepted: 07/11/2019] [Indexed: 06/10/2023]
Abstract
Polymer brushes have wide application in surface modification. We study dense, short polymer brushes immersed in a mixing solvent under athermal conditions using the classical density functional theory. The brush polymer is short so that the equilibrium behavior of the brush deviates far from the scaling laws for infinite brush chains. The excluded volume interaction is the only interaction in the system. We compare the excluded volume effect of solvent molecules of different shapes. Two types of mixing solvents are considered: solvent composed of linear oligomers and monomers, or that of spherical particles and monomers. The effects of grafting density, solvent molecular size, and solvent number density on the brush height, the density profiles, the relative excess adsorption, and the brush-solvent interface width are systematically analyzed. In the adsorption aspect, the spherical particles have stronger ability than the linear oligomers do to penetrate through the brush layer and gather at the substrate. In the screening aspect, the oligomers are more capable of screening the excluded volume interaction between the brush chains than the spherical particles. The brush-solvent interface width decreases monotonically with increasing oligomer length, but it has a minimum with the increasing spherical particle size. Our research differentiates the attractive-interaction-induced phenomenon and the volume-exclusion-induced phenomenon in dense brush systems and exhibits the difference in the antifouling properties of the brushes contacting solvent molecules of different shapes.
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Trejos VM, Pizio O, Sokołowski S. Towards the description of adsorption of water in slit-like pores with walls covered by molecular brushes. J Chem Phys 2018; 149:234703. [PMID: 30579295 DOI: 10.1063/1.5066552] [Citation(s) in RCA: 5] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 01/18/2023] Open
Abstract
The density profiles, adsorption isotherms, and phase behavior of a water model in a slit-like pore with walls modified by pre-adsorbed tethered chain molecules have been studied in the framework of a density functional theory. Each chain is bonded to the surface by its terminal segment, and the surface density of grafted chains is the same for each wall. The model for water taken from the work of Clark et al. [Mol. Phys. 104, 3561 (2006)] reproduces successfully a bulk equation of state. The mean field approach has been used to describe the effects of attractive interactions. The chemical association effects are taken into account by using the first-order thermodynamic perturbation theory of Wertheim. We have found that the presence of molecular brushes on the pore walls has important consequences for the adsorption and phase behavior of confined water. If the brush segments do not attract water molecules strongly, the vapor-liquid coexistence envelope shrinks upon increasing brush density, but the critical temperature is weakly affected. Alteration from capillary condensation to evaporation is observed with changes in the brush density, number of segments of tethered chains, and/or chemical identity of segments. The crossover temperature is affected by all these factors. Moreover, we have shown that affinity of water to segments of tethers is an important factor determining adsorption of water vapor and the entire phase diagram.
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Affiliation(s)
- Víctor M Trejos
- Instituto de Química, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Circuito Exterior, 04510 Ciudad de México, Mexico
| | - Orest Pizio
- Instituto de Química, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Circuito Exterior, 04510 Ciudad de México, Mexico
| | - Stefan Sokołowski
- Department for the Modelling of Physico-Chemical Processes, Maria Curie-Skłodowska University, Lublin 20-031, Poland
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Słyk E, Roth R, Bryk P. Microscopic density functional theory for monolayers of diblock copolymers. J Chem Phys 2018; 149:064902. [PMID: 30111154 DOI: 10.1063/1.5039522] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.2] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 01/16/2023] Open
Abstract
We propose density functional theory for diblock copolymers in two dimensions. Our theoretical framework is based on Wertheim's first order thermodynamic perturbation theory. Using the proposed approach, we investigate the structure and phase behavior of monolayers of symmetric diblock copolymers. We find that the phase behavior of symmetric diblock copolymer monolayers is similar to that in 3D. This includes the scaling of the equilibrium lamellar width with chain length. We find that the topology of the resulting phase diagrams depends on the chain length and the unlike segment interaction incompatibility and involves either one, two, or three triple points (one of them being the peritectic point). We expect that a similar phase behavior could be obtained for monolayers of colloidal suspensions with carefully tuned interparticle interactions.
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Affiliation(s)
- Edyta Słyk
- Department for the Modeling of Physico-Chemical Processes, Maria Curie-Skłodowska University, 20-031 Lublin, Poland
| | - Roland Roth
- Institute for Theoretical Physics, University of Tübingen, Auf der Morgenstelle 14, 72076 Tübingen, Germany
| | - Paweł Bryk
- Department for the Modeling of Physico-Chemical Processes, Maria Curie-Skłodowska University, 20-031 Lublin, Poland
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Staszewski T, Borówko M. Molecular dynamics simulations of mono-tethered particles at solid surfaces. Phys Chem Chem Phys 2018; 20:20194-20204. [PMID: 30027950 DOI: 10.1039/c8cp03007c] [Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/21/2022]
Abstract
We use molecular dynamics simulations to study the behavior of mono-tethered nanoparticles on solid surfaces. In our model particle-particle and particle-chain interactions are repulsive, while chain-chain interactions are attractive. Two surfaces are considered: the first one attracts particles and the other attracts chains. Excess adsorption isotherms are presented for both the surfaces and different lengths of tethers. The mechanism of adsorption is discussed. We find that depending on the assumed parameters the mono-tethered particles can be adsorbed as single particles or as different aggregates. Our main goal is to explore the structure of surface films. We show that the morphology of the adsorbed layer depends mainly on the type of the surface but the influence of the particle diameter, the chain length and the density is also important. We prove that the shape of aggregates changes near the substrate. For certain parameters the aggregates can break under the influence of the surface.
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Affiliation(s)
- Tomasz Staszewski
- Department for the Modelling of Physico-Chemical Processes, Maria Curie-Skłodowska University, 20-031 Lublin, Poland.
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Zoppe JO, Ataman NC, Mocny P, Wang J, Moraes J, Klok HA. Surface-Initiated Controlled Radical Polymerization: State-of-the-Art, Opportunities, and Challenges in Surface and Interface Engineering with Polymer Brushes. Chem Rev 2017; 117:1105-1318. [PMID: 28135076 DOI: 10.1021/acs.chemrev.6b00314] [Citation(s) in RCA: 603] [Impact Index Per Article: 86.1] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 01/01/2023]
Abstract
The generation of polymer brushes by surface-initiated controlled radical polymerization (SI-CRP) techniques has become a powerful approach to tailor the chemical and physical properties of interfaces and has given rise to great advances in surface and interface engineering. Polymer brushes are defined as thin polymer films in which the individual polymer chains are tethered by one chain end to a solid interface. Significant advances have been made over the past years in the field of polymer brushes. This includes novel developments in SI-CRP, as well as the emergence of novel applications such as catalysis, electronics, nanomaterial synthesis and biosensing. Additionally, polymer brushes prepared via SI-CRP have been utilized to modify the surface of novel substrates such as natural fibers, polymer nanofibers, mesoporous materials, graphene, viruses and protein nanoparticles. The last years have also seen exciting advances in the chemical and physical characterization of polymer brushes, as well as an ever increasing set of computational and simulation tools that allow understanding and predictions of these surface-grafted polymer architectures. The aim of this contribution is to provide a comprehensive review that critically assesses recent advances in the field and highlights the opportunities and challenges for future work.
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Affiliation(s)
- Justin O Zoppe
- Institut des Matériaux and Institut des Sciences et Ingénierie Chimiques, Laboratoire des Polymères Bâtiment MXD, Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) , Station 12 CH-1015 Lausanne, Switzerland
| | - Nariye Cavusoglu Ataman
- Institut des Matériaux and Institut des Sciences et Ingénierie Chimiques, Laboratoire des Polymères Bâtiment MXD, Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) , Station 12 CH-1015 Lausanne, Switzerland
| | - Piotr Mocny
- Institut des Matériaux and Institut des Sciences et Ingénierie Chimiques, Laboratoire des Polymères Bâtiment MXD, Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) , Station 12 CH-1015 Lausanne, Switzerland
| | - Jian Wang
- Institut des Matériaux and Institut des Sciences et Ingénierie Chimiques, Laboratoire des Polymères Bâtiment MXD, Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) , Station 12 CH-1015 Lausanne, Switzerland
| | - John Moraes
- Institut des Matériaux and Institut des Sciences et Ingénierie Chimiques, Laboratoire des Polymères Bâtiment MXD, Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) , Station 12 CH-1015 Lausanne, Switzerland
| | - Harm-Anton Klok
- Institut des Matériaux and Institut des Sciences et Ingénierie Chimiques, Laboratoire des Polymères Bâtiment MXD, Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) , Station 12 CH-1015 Lausanne, Switzerland
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Słyk E, Roth R, Bryk P. Density functional theory for polymeric systems in 2D. JOURNAL OF PHYSICS. CONDENSED MATTER : AN INSTITUTE OF PHYSICS JOURNAL 2016; 28:244010. [PMID: 27115343 DOI: 10.1088/0953-8984/28/24/244010] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 06/05/2023]
Abstract
We propose density functional theory for polymeric fluids in two dimensions. The approach is based on Wertheim's first order thermodynamic perturbation theory (TPT) and closely follows density functional theory for polymers proposed by Yu and Wu (2002 J. Chem. Phys. 117 2368). As a simple application we evaluate the density profiles of tangent hard-disk polymers at hard walls. The theoretical predictions are compared against the results of the Monte Carlo simulations. We find that for short chain lengths the theoretical density profiles are in an excellent agreement with the Monte Carlo data. The agreement is less satisfactory for longer chains. The performance of the theory can be improved by recasting the approach using the self-consistent field theory formalism. When the self-avoiding chain statistics is used, the theory yields a marked improvement in the low density limit. Further improvements for long chains could be reached by going beyond the first order of TPT.
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Affiliation(s)
- Edyta Słyk
- Department for the Modeling of Physico-Chemical Processes, Maria Curie-Skłodowska University, 20-031 Lublin, Poland
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Borówko M, Sokołowski S, Staszewski T. Adsorption-induced changes of the structure of the tethered chain layers in a simple fluid. J Chem Phys 2014; 140:234904. [PMID: 24952565 DOI: 10.1063/1.4883336] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.1] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 01/09/2023] Open
Abstract
We use density functional theory to study the influence of fluid adsorption on the structure of grafted chain layer. The chains are modeled as freely jointed spheres. The chain segments and spherical molecules of the fluid interact via the Lennard-Jones potential. The fluid molecules are attracted by the substrate. We calculate the excess adsorption isotherms, the average height of tethered chains, and the force acting on selected segments of the chains. The parameters that were varied include the length of grafted chains, the grafting density, the parameters characterizing fluid-chain and fluid-surface interactions, the bulk fluid density, and temperature. We show that depending on the density of the bulk fluid the height of the bonded layer increases, remains constant, or decreases with increasing temperature.
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Affiliation(s)
- M Borówko
- Department for the Modelling of Physico-Chemical Processes, Maria Curie-Skłodowska University, 20-031 Lublin, Poland
| | - S Sokołowski
- Department for the Modelling of Physico-Chemical Processes, Maria Curie-Skłodowska University, 20-031 Lublin, Poland
| | - T Staszewski
- Department for the Modelling of Physico-Chemical Processes, Maria Curie-Skłodowska University, 20-031 Lublin, Poland
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