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Updated: Jan 26, 2026

Fabricating Superhydrophobic Polymeric Materials for Biomedical Applications
Published on: August 28, 2015
Combining ATRP and FRP Gels: Soft Gluing of Polymeric Materials for the Fabrication of Stackable Gels
Antoine Beziau1, Rafael N L De Menezes2, Santidan Biswas3
1Department of Chemistry, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA 15213, USA. antoine.beziau@gmail.com.
Abstract:
Stackable gels comprised of layers of dissimilar polymers were synthesized by combining conventional free radical polymerization (FRP) and atom transfer radical polymerization (ATRP) using two approaches: (i) polymerization of a pre-gel solution containing a monomer and cross-linker introduced on top of a previously prepared gel, and (ii) simultaneous polymerization of two immiscible pre-gel solutions remaining in contact. All permutations of FRP and ATRP yielded single-piece, connected, amphiphilic gels regardless of the order of polymerization. Furthermore, multi-layer ATRP gels combining different polymers were synthesized with the FRP layer as a gluing agent. A 10-layer amphiphilic stackable gel combining n-butyl methacrylate (BMA) and 2-(dimethylamino)ethyl methacrylate (DMAEMA), and a 10-layer stackable gel combining BMA, DMAEMA and di(ethylene glycol) methyl ether methacrylate (PEO₂MA) were synthesized. This patching method, combining conventional FRP gels with ATRP ones, offers an efficient path to the formation of complex stackable gel architectures.
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