A Universal Coating Strategy for Controllable Functionalized Polymer Surfaces

Development of a universal and stable surface coating, irrespective of surface chemistry or material characteristics, is highly desirable but has proved to be extremely challenging. Conventional coating strategies including the commonly used catechol surface coating are limited to either a certain type of substrates or weak and unreliable surface bonding. Here, a simple, robust, and universal surface coating method capable for attaching any stimuli-responsive glycidyl methacrylate (GMA)-based copolymer, consisting of one surface-adhesive moiety of epoxy groups and one stimuli-responsive moiety, to any type of hydrophobic and hydrophilic surfaces via a one-step ring-opening reaction is proposed and demonstrated. The resultant GMA-based copolymers are not only strongly adhered on different substrates (e.g., silicon, polypropylene, polyvinyl chloride, indium tin oxide, polyethylene terephthalate, aluminum, glass, polydimethylsiloxane, and even polyvinylidene fluoride with low surface energy), but also are possessed distinct thermal-, pH-, and salt-responsive functions of bacterial killing, bacterial releasing, tunable multicolor fluorescence emission, and heavy metal detection. This coating method is also compatible with the directional quaternization of GMA-based copolymers for further improving surface adhesion and functionality. This study provides a simple yet universal coating method to solve the long-standing challenge of robust integration of stimuli-responsive polymers with strong adhesion between various polymers and substrates.