Do you still think that when two polymer pieces are contacted, one would get homogeneously positively charged and the other would be homogeneously negative? Well, we must say you are outdatedly mistaken. Contrary to the common belief and the drawings in most electrostatics chapters, we have recently shown1 that the charge on the contact electrified polymers form nanodomains of either charge, both on positively and negatively charged surfaces, independent of sign of the net charge on the surface.This revolutionary finding raises many questions about the common observations in contact electrification process. One of these questions is whether these patches would lead to net charges of opposite signs on same materials. The possible mechanisms of why charges appear as �mosaics� on surfaces were discussed previously1. Here, by affecting on these mechanisms we were able to get a net change of polarity on the same objects.Apart from giving a useful insight to the mechanism of contact electrification2 which has been on debate3 since its first reporter discovery by Thales ca. 2000 years ago, this study also puts a new look to the effects of this charge-control on the related applications such as in drug manufacturing.Literature:[1] H. T. Baytekin, A. I. Patashinski, M. Branicki, B. Baytekin, B. A. Grzybowski, Science 2011, 333, 308-312.[2] a) R. G. Horn, D. T. Smith, Science 1992, 256, 362-364; b) R. G. Horn, D. T. Smith, A. Grabbe, Nature 1993, 366, 442-443. c) Jacobs, H. O., Whitesides, G. M. Science, 2001, 291, 1763-1766.[3] L. S. McCarty, G. M. Whitesides, Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 2008, 47, 2188-2207.This work was supported by the US Department of Energy, Office of Basic Energy Sciences as part of the Non-Equilibrium Energy Research Center (NERC), an Energy Frontier Research Center.

Contact electrification of polymers: Custom-made charging

243rd National Meeting (2012)

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