Related Experiment Video
Updated: Dec 14, 2025
Microbubble Fabrication of Concave-porosity PDMS Beads
Published on: December 15, 2015
A stable PEO-tethered PDMS surface having controllable wetting property by a swelling-deswelling process
1State Key Laboratory of Polymer Physics and Chemistry, Changchun Institute of Applied Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Graduate School of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Changchun, 130022, P. R. China. ychan@ciac.jl.cn.
Abstract:
A PEO-tethered layer on a PDMS (polydimethylsiloxane) cross-linked network has been prepared by a swelling-deswelling process. During swelling, the PDMS block of a PDMS-b-PEO diblock copolymer penetrates into the PDMS substrate and interacts with PDMS chains because of the van der Waals force and hydrophobic interaction between them. Upon deswelling, the PDMS block is trapped in the PDMS matrix while the PEO, as a hydrophilic block, is tethered to the surface. The PEO-tethered layer showed stability when treated in water for 16 h. The surface fraction of PEO and the wetting property of the PEO-tethered PDMS surface can be controlled by the cross linking density of the PDMS matrix. A patterned PEO-tethered layer on a PDMS network was also created by microcontact printing and water condensation figures (CFs) were used to study the patterned surface with different wetting properties.
