(670a) Understanding the Spontaneous Segregation of Bottlebrush Additives to Surfaces and Interfaces

Bottlebrush polymers can be used to introduce novel surface properties including hydrophilicity, stimuli-responsiveness, and reduced friction forces. In this talk, I will demonstrate that bottlebrush polymers are effective additives for modifying surfaces and interfaces by leveraging entropically-mediated segregation. In blends with linear polymers, they exhibit preferential segregation to surfaces and interfaces due to an entropic attraction arising from the brush-like architecture. Through time-of-flight secondary ion mass spectroscopy (ToF-SIMS), we can visualize and quantify the distribution of bottlebrush polymer additives in different linear polymer matrices. I will present systematic studies of the distribution of bottlebrush polymer additives as a function of bottlebrush and linear polymer chemistry, processing conditions, and annealing history. This study demonstrates that bottlebrush copolymer additives can be designed to spontaneously segregate to surfaces in thermal blends, providing a possible route to decouple surface properties from bulk properties. Segregation of the additives is driven by the dense brush architecture of bottlebrush polymers.