Local Wear of Catechol-Containing Diblock Copolymer Layers : Wear Volume, Stick-Slip, and Nanomechanical Changes

• Polymers containing catechol groups have gained a large interest, as they mimic an essential feature of mussel adhesive proteins that allow strong binding to a large variety of surfaces under water. This feature has made this class of polymers interesting for surface modification purposes, as layer functionalities can be introduced by a simple adsorption process, where the catechol groups should provide a strong anchoring to the surface. In this work, we utilize an AFM-based method to evaluate the wear resistance of such polymer layers in water and compare it with that offered by electrostatically driven adsorption. We pay particular attention to two block copolymer systems where the anchoring group in one case is an uncharged catechol-containing block and in the other case a positively charged and catechol-containing block. The wear resistance is evaluated in terms of wear volume, and here, we compare with data for similar copolymers with statistical distribution of the catechol groups. Monitoring of nanomechanical properties provides an alternative way of illustrating the effect of wear, and we use modeling to show that the stiffness, as probed by an AFM tip, of the soft layer residing on a hard substrate increases as the thickness of the layer decreases. The stick-slip characteristics are also evaluated. © 2021 The Authors. 

Ämnesord

NATURVETENSKAP  -- Kemi -- Fysikalisk kemi (hsv//swe)

NATURAL SCIENCES  -- Chemical Sciences -- Physical Chemistry (hsv//eng)

Nyckelord

Adhesives

Block copolymers

Phenols

Slip forming

Wear of materials

Wear resistance

As layers

Diblock-copolymer

Essential features

Local wears

Mussel adhesive proteins

Nanomechanical

Strong binding

Surface-modification

Under water

Wear volume

Stick-slip

Experimentell fysik

Applied Physics

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