Beijing National Laboratory for Molecular Sciences, Laboratory of Polymer Physics and Chemistry, Institute of Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences , Beijing 100190, People's Republic of China.
ACS Appl Mater Interfaces. 2014 Apr 23;6(8):5602-8. doi: 10.1021/am406052u. Epub 2014 Apr 9.
Inspired by the remarkable adhesion of mussel, dopamine, a mimicking adhesive molecule, has been widely used for surface modification of various materials ranging from organic to inorganic. However, dopamine and its derivatives are expensive which impede their application in large scale. Herein, we replaced dopamine with low-cost catechol and polyamine (only 8% of the cost of dopamine), which could be polymerized in an alkaline solution and deposited on the surfaces of various materials. By using this cheap and simple modification method, polypropylene (PP) separator could be transformed from hydrophobic to hydrophilic, while the pore structure and mechanical property of the separator remained intact. The uptake of electrolyte increased from 80% to 270% after the hydrophilic modification. Electrochemical studies demonstrated that battery with the modified PP separator had a better Coulombic efficiency (80.9% to 85.3%) during the first cycle at a current density of 0.1 C, while the discharging current density increased to 15 C and the discharge capacity increased by 1.4 times compared to the battery using the bare PP separator. Additionally, the modification allowed excellent stability during manifold cycles. This study provides new insights into utilizing low-cost chemicals to mimic the mussel adhesion and has potential practical application in many fields.
受贻贝超强黏附力的启发，模仿贻贝黏附蛋白的多巴胺被广泛用于各种有机和无机材料的表面修饰。然而，多巴胺及其衍生物价格昂贵，限制了其大规模应用。在此，我们用成本低得多的儿茶酚和多胺（仅为多巴胺的 8%）代替多巴胺，它们可以在碱性溶液中聚合并沉积在各种材料的表面。通过使用这种廉价且简单的改性方法，我们成功地将疏水性的聚丙烯（PP）隔膜转变为亲水性，而隔膜的孔结构和机械性能保持不变。亲水性改性后，电解质的吸收率从 80%增加到 270%。电化学研究表明，在电流密度为 0.1 C 的条件下，使用改性 PP 隔膜的电池在第一个循环中具有更好的库仑效率（80.9%至 85.3%），而放电电流密度增加到 15 C，放电容量比使用裸 PP 隔膜的电池增加了 1.4 倍。此外，这种改性在多次循环中表现出优异的稳定性。本研究为利用低成本化学品模拟贻贝黏附提供了新的思路，并在许多领域具有潜在的实际应用价值。
