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Molecular Transport within Polymer Brushes: A FRET View at Aqueous Interfaces

Molecular permeability through polymer brush chains is implicated in surface lubrication, wettability, and solute capture and release. Probing molecular transport through polymer brushes can reveal information on the polymer nanostructure, with a permeability that is dependent on chain conformation...

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Autores principales: Besford, Quinn A., Schubotz, Simon, Chae, Soosang, Özdabak Sert, Ayşe B., Weiss, Alessia C. G., Auernhammer, Günter K., Uhlmann, Petra, Farinha, José Paulo S., Fery, Andreas
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9102696/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35566393
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/molecules27093043
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author Besford, Quinn A.
Schubotz, Simon
Chae, Soosang
Özdabak Sert, Ayşe B.
Weiss, Alessia C. G.
Auernhammer, Günter K.
Uhlmann, Petra
Farinha, José Paulo S.
Fery, Andreas
author_facet Besford, Quinn A.
Schubotz, Simon
Chae, Soosang
Özdabak Sert, Ayşe B.
Weiss, Alessia C. G.
Auernhammer, Günter K.
Uhlmann, Petra
Farinha, José Paulo S.
Fery, Andreas
author_sort Besford, Quinn A.
collection PubMed
description Molecular permeability through polymer brush chains is implicated in surface lubrication, wettability, and solute capture and release. Probing molecular transport through polymer brushes can reveal information on the polymer nanostructure, with a permeability that is dependent on chain conformation and grafting density. Herein, we introduce a brush system to study the molecular transport of fluorophores from an aqueous droplet into the external “dry” polymer brush with the vapour phase above. The brushes consist of a random copolymer of N-isopropylacrylamide and a Förster resonance energy transfer (FRET) donor-labelled monomer, forming ultrathin brush architectures of about 35 nm in solvated height. Aqueous droplets containing a separate FRET acceptor are placed onto the surfaces, with FRET monitored spatially around the 3-phase contact line. FRET is used to monitor the transport from the droplet to the outside brush, and the changing internal distributions with time as the droplets prepare to recede. This reveals information on the dynamics and distances involved in the molecular transport of the FRET acceptor towards and away from the droplet contact line, which are strongly dependent on the relative humidity of the system. We anticipate our system to be extremely useful for studying lubrication dynamics and surface droplet wettability processes.
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spelling pubmed-91026962022-05-14 Molecular Transport within Polymer Brushes: A FRET View at Aqueous Interfaces Besford, Quinn A. Schubotz, Simon Chae, Soosang Özdabak Sert, Ayşe B. Weiss, Alessia C. G. Auernhammer, Günter K. Uhlmann, Petra Farinha, José Paulo S. Fery, Andreas Molecules Article Molecular permeability through polymer brush chains is implicated in surface lubrication, wettability, and solute capture and release. Probing molecular transport through polymer brushes can reveal information on the polymer nanostructure, with a permeability that is dependent on chain conformation and grafting density. Herein, we introduce a brush system to study the molecular transport of fluorophores from an aqueous droplet into the external “dry” polymer brush with the vapour phase above. The brushes consist of a random copolymer of N-isopropylacrylamide and a Förster resonance energy transfer (FRET) donor-labelled monomer, forming ultrathin brush architectures of about 35 nm in solvated height. Aqueous droplets containing a separate FRET acceptor are placed onto the surfaces, with FRET monitored spatially around the 3-phase contact line. FRET is used to monitor the transport from the droplet to the outside brush, and the changing internal distributions with time as the droplets prepare to recede. This reveals information on the dynamics and distances involved in the molecular transport of the FRET acceptor towards and away from the droplet contact line, which are strongly dependent on the relative humidity of the system. We anticipate our system to be extremely useful for studying lubrication dynamics and surface droplet wettability processes. MDPI 2022-05-09 /pmc/articles/PMC9102696/ /pubmed/35566393 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/molecules27093043 Text en © 2022 by the authors. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Article
Besford, Quinn A.
Schubotz, Simon
Chae, Soosang
Özdabak Sert, Ayşe B.
Weiss, Alessia C. G.
Auernhammer, Günter K.
Uhlmann, Petra
Farinha, José Paulo S.
Fery, Andreas
Molecular Transport within Polymer Brushes: A FRET View at Aqueous Interfaces
title Molecular Transport within Polymer Brushes: A FRET View at Aqueous Interfaces
title_full Molecular Transport within Polymer Brushes: A FRET View at Aqueous Interfaces
title_fullStr Molecular Transport within Polymer Brushes: A FRET View at Aqueous Interfaces
title_full_unstemmed Molecular Transport within Polymer Brushes: A FRET View at Aqueous Interfaces
title_short Molecular Transport within Polymer Brushes: A FRET View at Aqueous Interfaces
title_sort molecular transport within polymer brushes: a fret view at aqueous interfaces
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9102696/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35566393
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/molecules27093043
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