Electrografting of thin polymer films: Three strategies for the tailoring of functional adherent coatings

Cathodic electrografting is an efficient technique to impart adhesion to poly(meth)acrylate coatings onto inorganic conducting surfaces. Although this technique was restricted for many years to very few monomers ((meth)acrylonitrile and (meth)acrylates) and to deposition of very thin polymer films, recent developments have overcome these limitations. First of all, classical controlled/living polymerization techniques have been combined with cathodic electrografting as a powerful strategy for tuning thickness, properties and reactivity of the chemisorbed organic films. Secondly, thanks to the successful electrografting of a new reactive monomer bearing an activated ester, electrografted surfaces are now available for further derivatization by a wide variety of nucleophiles. Finally, the electrografting process has been extended to the direct electrografting of reactive polymers, i.e. preformed polymers bearing pendant acrylic functions, which opens the way to the grafting of, e.g., polycondensates.