Softness is an essential mechanical feature of macromolecular particles such as polymer-grafted nanocolloids, polyelectrolyte networks, cross-linked microgels as well as block copolymer and dendrimer micelles. Elasticity of individual particles directly controls their swelling, wetting, and adsorption behaviour, their aggregation and self-assembly as well as structural and rheological propertie...

A recently developed technique, i.e., two-dimensional infrared (2D IR) correlation spectroscopy, is used to study the thermal behavior of poly(ethylene-co-vinyl alcohol)-graft-poly( -caprolactone), a new synthesized highly grafted copolymer. The use of the 2D IR approach to analyze temperature-dependent spectra collected in situ during the temperature elevation process effectively enhanced the ...

Recently, green chemistry has become one of the most important subjects of science for environmental pollution prevention. Here, we report development of a novel chromatographic technology for phenylthiohydantoin (PTH)-amino acid analyses in which only aqueous solution is used as the mobile phase. We have devised HPLC adsorbents (stationary phase) by modifying the surfaces of microparticulate s...

The surface-initiated ATRP of benzyl methacrylate, methyl methacrylate, and styrene from magnetite nanoparticle is investigated, without the use of sacrificial (free) initiator in solution. It is observed that the grafting density obtained is related to the polymerization kinetics, being higher for faster polymerizing monomer. The grafting density was found to be nearly 2 chains/nm2for the rapi...

We review some recent research developments in coarse-grained modeling based on mean-field approaches of the equilibrium dispersion and structure of polymer nanoparticle composites. We focus on three issues: (i) dispersion and phase behavior of particles in homopolymer matrices; (ii) dispersion in mixtures of homopolymers with grafted nanoparticles; (iii) self-assembly and organization of nanop...

The ability to control the structure and function of supramolecular self-assemblies gives rise to many patterning possibilities. Making use of the interactions between the copolymers and solvent provides a neat way of controlling the structures. The pyridine residues of each of the diblock copolymer polystyrene-b-poly(4-vinylpyridine) (PS-P4VP) was selectively betainized using 1,3-propane sulto...

In this work we used the Photoacoustic Spectroscopy (PAS) to evaluate the crosslinking of the copolymer from ethylene vinyl trimethoxysilane (EVS) and the grafted vinyl trimethoxysilane (VTS) on low density polyethylene (LDPE). PAS is used for sounding the overtone bands and stretching frequencies combinations of the groupings -Si-OH, =CH2, -CH3 and -CH2-CH3, in the near and medium infrared ran...

Amphiphilic gold nanoparticles grafted with V-shaped brushes (Au-V-brushes) were prepared by grafting a polystyrene-b-poly(ethylene oxide) (PS-b-PEO) block copolymer with a trithiocarbonate group as the junction to the Au surface. The obtained Au-V-brushes were subjected to solubility test and UV-vis, FT-IR, TEM and DLS characterizations. It is found that the Au-V-brushes are soluble in both wa...

The preparation of well-defined block copolymers using controlled radical polymerization depends on the proper order of monomer addition. The reversed order of monomer addition results in a mixture of block copolymer and homopolymer and thus has typically been avoided. In this paper, the low blocking efficiency of reversed monomer addition order is utilized in combination with surface initiated...

Comb-shaped amphiphilic polymers are rapidly emerging as an alternative approach to amphiphilic block copolymers for hydrophobic drug solubilization. These polymers consist of a homopolymer or copolymer backbone to which hydrophobic and hydrophilic pendant groups can be grafted resulting in a comb-like architecture. The hydrophobic pendants may consist of homopolymers, copolymers and other low-...