Brió Pérez Maria, Cirelli Marco, de Beer Sissi
Materials Science and Technology of Polymers, MESA+ Institute for Nanotechnology, University of Twente, P.O. Box 217, 7500 AE Enschede, The Netherlands.
ACS Appl Polym Mater. 2020 Aug 14;2(8):3039-3043. doi: 10.1021/acsapm.0c00474. Epub 2020 Jul 8.
It is well-known that polymer brushes can degraft in aqueous liquids. Here we show that brushes can deteriorate in humid air too. We observe that the detachment rate of the brushes increases with increasing relative humidity and hydrophilicity of the brushes. We relate this to the increase in water absorption as these parameters are increased. Our results imply that protective measures that are at present being developed for applications of brushes in liquids will also be key in enabling the long-term storage and utilization of hydrophilic brushes in air.
众所周知，聚合物刷在水性液体中会发生脱接枝现象。在此我们表明，刷子在潮湿空气中也会变质。我们观察到，刷子的脱离速率随相对湿度的增加以及刷子亲水性的增强而提高。我们将此归因于随着这些参数的增加吸水率也随之增加。我们的结果表明，目前正在为刷子在液体中的应用而开发的保护措施，对于实现亲水性刷子在空气中的长期储存和使用也将至关重要。
