posted on 2024-03-05, 17:47authored byDaheng Wu, Jianing Wang, Xiaodong Yin, Runxiang Tan, Tao Zhang
Surface-tethered
poly(ionic liquid) brushes have attracted considerable
attention in widespread fields, from bioengineering to marine antifouling.
However, their applications have been constrained due to the poor
polymerization efficiency and sophisticated operation process. In
this work, we efficiently synthesized the poly(ionic liquid) brushes
with unparalleled speed (up to 98 nm h–1) through
Fe0-mediated surface-initiated atom transfer radical polymerization
(Fe0 SI-ATRP) while consuming only microliter of monomer
solution under ambient conditions. We also demonstrated that poly(ionic
liquid) brushes with gradient thickness and wettability were easily
accessible by regulating the distance between the opposite plates
of Fe0 SI-ATRP. Moreover, the resultant poly(ionic liquid)
brushes presented excellent antibacterial activities against Escherichia coli (99.2%) and Bacillus subtilis (88.1%) after 24 h and low attachment for proteins and marine algae
(≤5%) for over 2 weeks. This research provided pathways to
the facile and controllable fabrication of poly(ionic liquid) materials
for marine antifouling applications.