Synthesis of poly(styrene sulfonate) brushes.
Dense poly(styrene sulfonate sodium salt) brushes were prepared on silicone wafers using a two-step procedure: polystyrene (PS) chains, terminated by a reactive trichlorosilane group, were first covalently grafted, and then the PS brush was converted to a poly(styrene sulfonate) brush by a soft sulfonation reaction. Ellipsometry and infrared spectroscopy in ATR were used to characterize the samples and to optimize the procedure: in particular, the sulfonation was shown to be homogeneous along the chain backbone and the neutralization complete. In some cases, the polymer layer revealed to be quite fragile: the chains were pulled out of the brush. A consolidation treatment which consisted in grafting oligomers inbetween the long PS chains significantly increased the robustness of the layer. This might be relevant for industrial applications.
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Institut Curie, UMR 168, 11 rue Pierre et Marie Curie, 75231 Paris Cedex 05, France.
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