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Updated: Jan 25, 2026

Preparation and Friction Force Microscopy Measurements of Immiscible, Opposing Polymer Brushes
Published on: December 24, 2014
Polymer Brush Graft-Modified Starch-Based Nanoparticles as Pickering Emulsifiers
Xiaopeng Pei1,2, Kankan Zhai1,2, Chao Wang1,2
1Key Laboratory of Polymer Ecomaterials, Changchun Institute of Applied Chemistry , Chinese Academy of Sciences , Changchun 130022 , PR China.
Abstract:
We study biosourced core-shell particles with a starch-based core and thermo-responsive polymer brush shell using surface-initiated single-electron transfer living radical polymerization (SI-SET-LRP) as a Pickering stabilizer. The shell endows the Pickering stabilizer with reversible emulsification/demulsification of oil and water properties. The initiator attached to the starch-based nanosphere (Br-SNP) core particle was first fabricated using the precipitation method. Subsequently, dense poly( N-isopropylacrylamide) (PNIPAM) brush graft-modified starch-based nanoparticles (SNP- g-PNIPAM) were obtained via the SI-SET-LRP process. Interfacial properties of the resultant particles were analyzed by interfacial tensiometer measurements, as were the effects of the grafted polymer chain length and temperature on the interfacial activity. Pickering emulsion was obtained using SNP- g-PNIPAM particles as the stabilizer. The effect of the concentration of the Pickering stabilizer on the size of emulsion droplets was analyzed. The emulsification/demulsification process of the Pickering emulsion can be reversed and easily repeated by changing the temperature.
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