Many chemical processes rely on interactions with surfaces, such as heterogeneous catalysis and crystal nucleation. Rapid advancements in technologies that utilize these processes have generated a demand for increasingly intricate surface engineering and ever more efficient production processes. The objective of this study was to develop a general method for producing functionalized elastic surfaces, the chemical behavior of which may be easily modified by mechanically stretching or compressing the material to change the density of the functional groups. Previous surface modifications have been almost exclusively on rigid supports. When they have been used on mechanically tunable surfaces, they have been limited to a few functional groups. In this study, the prototypical elastic polymer polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) was functionalized using a copper-catalyzed azide-alkyne cycloaddition. First, the surface was oxidized, then an azide-substituted silane was covalently linked to the surface. Finally, copper-catalyzed click chemistry was used to derivatize the surface with the R group of a substituted alkyne. Carboxylic acid, amine, and ester functionalized surfaces were formed and characterized by SPR-enhanced ATR-FTIR spectroscopy and contact angle measurements. This surface modification is a simple, robust procedure that can access a wide variety of functional groups, most of which may be found in commercially available alkynes.

Surface functionalization of silicone films using click chemistry: synthetic strategies for designing mechanically tunable surfaces

255th National Meeting (2018)

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