Stimuli-responsive polymer coatings enable surface properties to be tuned by external stimuli (i.e. variations of environmental conditions) via changes in their physical conformation, surface chemistry, or both. This capacity enables their use as functional elements in nanotechnologies such as valves in microfluidic devices, as membranes in biomedical engineering or as substrates for culture of biological tissues. However, such coatings usually suffer from major shortcomings such as lack of selectivity and response rapidity or poor environmental stability. The present work aims to overcome some of these limitations by investigating a new generation of responsive hierarchical coatings whose physical properties and surface chemistry can be tuned independently and reversibly using different external stimuli such as temperature, pH, ionic strength or light. The hierarchical coatings consist of two-dimensional poly(N-isopropylacrylamide) microgel arrays surface-functionalized with polymers whose characteristic dimensions and surface properties can be independently controlled by different stimuli (pH, ionic strength of temperature) according to the desired surface properties.

Multi-responsive hierarchical coatings: Synthesis and characterization

2019 Fall National Meeting

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