Polyelectrolyte multilayers incorporating photocrosslinking polymers for controlling 2- and 3-dimensional structure

Polyelectrolyte multilayer (PEM) assembly is a technology for building thin films with a number of useful and novel functionalities. PEMs interact favorably with proteins and other biomolecules making them potentially valuable as biomaterials. Many systems of polymers have been studied for use in PEMs, including weak polyelectrolytes such as those containing poly(acrylic acid) (PAA) and poly(allyamine hydrochloride) (PAH), which exhibit pH-dependent behavior. Properties such as thickness, swellability, mechanical stiffness, porosity (and by extention optical properties), and ability to adsorb small molecules are all controlled by the charge density of these polymers in the film and their resultant binding state. Patterning covalent binding through photo-crosslinking in addition to electrostatic binding, can locally override the native tendency to change structure with changes in pH. To achieve this, poly(acrylic acid) was chemically modified through a halide esterification reaction to incorporate photo-crosslinkable vinylbenzyl side groups, making poly(acrylic acid-ran-vinylbenzyl acrylate) (PAArVBA). The chemical modification was characterized by nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy (NMR) and light spectroscopy.

Department dc:contributor.department

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dept. of Materials Science and Engineering.

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2007

Author dc:creator

• Olugebefola, Solar Candido Ademola

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Anne M. Mayes and Michael F. Rubner.

• Materials Science and Engineering.

Statement dc:rights

• M.I.T. theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from this source for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission. See provided URL for inquiries about permission.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/40352

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/40352