Layer-by-Layer Hydrogen-Bonded Polymer Films: From Fundamentals to Applications Academic Article uri icon

abstract

  • AbstractRecent years have seen increasing interest in the construction of nanoscopically layered materials involving aqueousbased sequential assembly of polymers on solid substrates. In the booming research area of layerbylayer (LbL) assembly of oppositely charged polymers, selfassembly driven by hydrogen bond formation emerges as a powerful technique. Hydrogenbonded (HB) LbL materials open new opportunities for LbL films, which are more difficult to produce than their electrostatically assembled counterparts. Specifically, the new properties associated with HB assembly include: 1) the ease of producing films responsive to environmental pH at mild pH values, 2) numerous possibilities for converting HB films into single or twocomponent ultrathin hydrogel materials, and 3) the inclusion of polymers with low glass transition temperatures (e.g., poly(ethylene oxide)) within ultrathin films. These properties can lead to new applications for HB LbL films, such as pH and/or temperatureresponsive drug delivery systems, materials with tunable mechanical properties, release films dissolvable under physiological conditions, and protonexchange membranes for fuel cells. In this report, we discuss the recent developments in the synthesis of LbL materials based on HB assembly, the study of their structureproperty relationships, and the prospective applications of HB LbL constructs in biotechnology and biomedicine.

published proceedings

  • ADVANCED MATERIALS

altmetric score

  • 3

author list (cited authors)

  • Kharlampieva, E., Kozlovskaya, V., & Sukhishvili, S. A.

citation count

  • 367

complete list of authors

  • Kharlampieva, Eugenia||Kozlovskaya, Veronika||Sukhishvili, Svetlana A

publication date

  • August 2009

publisher