Brush Away Those Layer-By-Layer Membranes: Fundamentals of Polyelectrolytic Brush Membranes

This project includes fundamental studies of surface initiated atom transfer radical polymerization (SI-ATRP) on membranes to pinpoint methods to control brush density and location, brush length/rates of growth, and membrane stability. These fundamentals will be utilized to produce polyelectrolytic polymer brushes with distinct alternately-charged block layers. The application of SI-ATRP in polyelectrolytic membranes aims to improve previous membranes with layer-by-layer (LbL) polyelectrolyte deposition, which have been shown to reject ions but are unstable at varying pH’s. This work begins the proposed project that won Cassandra Porter the 2018 NWRI-AMTA Fellowship and thus should be included in the conference program.