Related Experiment Video
Updated: Jun 20, 2026
Fabrication of Large-area Free-standing Ultrathin Polymer Films
Published on: June 3, 2015
Fabrication of free-standing polyelectrolyte multilayer films: a method using polysulfobetaine-containing films as
Zhangliang Gui1, Jinwen Qian, Binyang Du
1Department of Polymer Science and Engineering, Zhejiang University, Key Laboratory of Macromolecular Synthesis and Functionalization (Ministry of Education), Hangzhou 310027, China.
Abstract:
A new pH-dependent sacrificial system based on zwitterionic polysulfobetaine was proposed for the fabrication of free-standing polyelectrolyte multilayer films. The zwitterionic polysulfobetaine, poly(4-vinylpyridine propylsulfobetaine) (P4VPPS), was synthesized and its layer-by-layer (LbL) self-assembly behavior with poly(diallyldimethylammonium) (PDDA) as counterpart was investigated by using UV-vis absorption spectroscopy, quartz crystal microbalance (QCM) and atomic force microscopy (AFM). The LbL multilayer films of PDDA/P4VPPS were successfully constructed in acid aqueous solution at pH 2 with 0.5 M NaCl. The resultant PDDA/P4VPPS multilayer films were pH-dependent and could be disintegrated in alkali aqueous solutions, especially with pH > or = 12. This disintegration property rendered such multilayer film as a sacrificial layer for further preparing free-standing polyelectrolyte multilayer films. The PDDA/poly(sodium 4-styrenesulfonate) (PSS) multilayer films deposited on the PDDA/P4VPPS sacrificial layer were confirmed to be successfully released after treated successively by alkali aqueous solution at pH 12 and ethanol. The obtained PDDA/PSS free-standing multilayer films had thicknesses of ca. 847 nm.
