European Polymer Journal
European Polymer Journal
5 years ago

Monomolecular films of arborescent polystyrene–graft–poly(2-vinylpyridine) copolymers: Precursors to nanostructured carbon materials

Monomolecular films of arborescent polystyrene–graft–poly(2-vinylpyridine) copolymers: Precursors to nanostructured carbon materials
An arborescent polystyrene (PS)–graft–poly(2-vinylpyridine) (P2VP) copolymer of overall generation number G2, consisting of side chains with Mn ∼5000, served as template for the preparation of nanostructured carbon films. Spin casting of arborescent PS–graf–P2VP copolymers yielded monomolecular films of uniform thickness. The uniformity of the copolymer films was influenced by the casting solvent selected. Methanol solutions of the copolymers led to non-uniform layers consisting of large aggregates and voids. Homogeneous monolayer films were attained from copolymer solutions in tetrahydrofuran, which is a good solvent for both the PS and P2VP components. The copolymer molecules in the film were strongly flattened by adsorption forces, but recovered a spherical geometry after annealing in water. The water-annealed films could be directly converted into their analogous carbon films having nanodots on the surface by UV irradiation with concurrent pyrolysis. The pyrolyzed nanomaterials exhibited the characteristics of partially graphitic carbon with nitrogen.

Publisher URL: www.sciencedirect.com/science

DOI: S0014305717311461

You might also like
Discover & Discuss Important Research

Keeping up-to-date with research can feel impossible, with papers being published faster than you'll ever be able to read them. That's where Researcher comes in: we're simplifying discovery and making important discussions happen. With over 19,000 sources, including peer-reviewed journals, preprints, blogs, universities, podcasts and Live events across 10 research areas, you'll never miss what's important to you. It's like social media, but better. Oh, and we should mention - it's free.

  • Download from Google Play
  • Download from App Store
  • Download from AppInChina

Researcher displays publicly available abstracts and doesn’t host any full article content. If the content is open access, we will direct clicks from the abstracts to the publisher website and display the PDF copy on our platform. Clicks to view the full text will be directed to the publisher website, where only users with subscriptions or access through their institution are able to view the full article.