2 research outputs found
Electroassisted Functionalization of Nitinol Surface, a Powerful Strategy for Polymer Coating through Controlled Radical Surface Initiation
Coating
Nitinol (NiTi) surfaces with a polymer layer has become
very appealing in the past few years owing to its increased attraction
in the biomedical field. Although its intrinsic properties helped
ensure its popularity, its extensive implementation is still hampered
by its nickel inclusion, making it sensitive to pitting corrosion
and therefore leading to the release of carcinogenic Ni<sup>2+</sup> ions. Among all recent ways to modify NiTi surfaces, elaboration
of self-assembled monolayers is of great interest as their high order
confers a reinforcement of the metal surface corrosion resistance
and brings new functionalities to the metal for postmodification processes.
In this work, we compare the electroassisted and thermally assisted
self-assembling of 11-(2-bromoisobutyrate)-undecyl-1-phosphonic acid
(BUPA) to the classical immersion process on NiTi surfaces initially
submitted to a hydrothermal treatment. Among all tested conditions,
the electroassisted grafting of BUPA at room temperature appears to
be the most promising alternative, as it allows grafting in very short
times (5–10 min), thus preventing its degradation. The thus-formed
layer has been proven to be sufficient to enable the surface-initiated
atom transfer radical polymerization (SI-ATRP) of 2-(dimethylamino)ethyl
methacrylate
Plasma Treatment of Metal Oxide Nanoparticles: Development of Core–Shell Structures for a Better and Similar Dispersibility
Low-pressure
plasma polymerization of cyclopropylamine was employed
for the surface functionalization of commercial ZnO, Al<sub>2</sub>O<sub>3</sub>, and ZrO<sub>2</sub> nanoparticles in a homemade hollow
cathode plasma reactor. The analysis of the modified nanoparticles
by X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) revealed the incorporation
of reactive functional groups such as primary and secondary amines,
which was confirmed by Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR).
The raw and the plasma functionalized nanoparticles were evaluated
in terms of dispersibility. Application of Hansen solubility parameters
(HSP) theory showed that the efficient plasma polymerization that
led to the deposition of an approximately 5 nm thick plasma polymer
film, as determined by transmission electron microscopy (TEM), causes
a similar shift toward the Hansen solubility space for the functionalized
nanoparticles and changes their physicochemical affinity within selected
solvents, regardless of the kind of nanoparticles used. Hence, a combined
exploitation of nanoparticles having different cores is feasible in
applications such as nanocomposites and bioapplications having certain
reactivity after grafting an amine-based plasma polymer film that
allows achieving a similar dispersibility