Bushell Michael, Ianoul Anatoli
Department of Chemistry, Carleton University 1125 Colonel By Dr Ottawa ON Canada
RSC Adv. 2019 Jun 17;9(33):19131-19141. doi: 10.1039/c9ra02490e. eCollection 2019 Jun 14.
Fabrication of polymer-nanoparticle nanocomposites typically relies on mixing nanoparticle and polymer solutions, which renders little control over nanoparticle incorporation, and homogeneity of the resulting composite material. This work focuses on the thermally induced embedment of monocrystalline silver nanocubes (AgNCs) into polymer surfaces. The AgNCs are initially deposited through a Langmuir approach onto films of immiscible blended polymer films, which allows fine control over nanoparticle density and aggregation state. This nanoparticle/polymer composite is then heated above the glass transition temperature ( ) of a polymer, which initiates the irreversible embedding of the AgNCs. The immiscible ternary polymer films featured discrete domains (with different s), which were altered by changing the amount of polystyrene, poly(2-vinylpyridine) and poly(methyl methacrylate) within the polymer solution. The dependence of the embedding process allowed the selective embedment of AgNCs into discrete polymer domains. The process was monitored in real time by using spatially separated hybrid plasmon modes, through peak shifts observed in a UV-vis spectrum. Enhanced surface confinement was observed for certain tripolymer films when compared to polystyrene-AgNC nanocomposites, due to changes in the surface energy within the blend. This work brings interesting insight on nanoparticle-blended polymer interactions and provides a fairly universal approach for the fabrication of these polymer-metal nanoparticle nanocomposites, which is of particular interest in fields that require fine control over nanoparticle incorporation within segregated polymer domains.
聚合物-纳米颗粒纳米复合材料的制备通常依赖于混合纳米颗粒和聚合物溶液，这使得对纳米颗粒的掺入以及所得复合材料的均匀性几乎无法控制。这项工作聚焦于将单晶银纳米立方体（AgNCs）热诱导嵌入聚合物表面。AgNCs最初通过Langmuir方法沉积在不混溶的共混聚合物薄膜上，这使得能够对纳米颗粒密度和聚集状态进行精细控制。然后将这种纳米颗粒/聚合物复合材料加热到聚合物的玻璃化转变温度以上，从而引发AgNCs的不可逆嵌入。不混溶的三元聚合物薄膜具有离散的区域（具有不同的玻璃化转变温度），通过改变聚合物溶液中聚苯乙烯、聚（2-乙烯基吡啶）和聚（甲基丙烯酸甲酯）的量可以改变这些区域。嵌入过程对玻璃化转变温度的依赖性使得能够将AgNCs选择性地嵌入离散的聚合物区域。通过使用空间分离的混合等离子体模式，通过紫外-可见光谱中观察到的峰位移实时监测该过程。与聚苯乙烯-AgNC纳米复合材料相比，某些三元聚合物薄膜观察到增强的表面限制，这是由于共混物中表面能的变化。这项工作为纳米颗粒共混聚合物相互作用带来了有趣的见解，并为这些聚合物-金属纳米颗粒纳米复合材料的制备提供了一种相当通用的方法，这在需要对纳米颗粒在隔离的聚合物区域内的掺入进行精细控制的领域中尤为重要。
