Behavior of polyelectrolyte and polyampholyte brushes
Postdoctoral Research Associate

Past Experience:

Michael Tomlinson is a postdoctoral researcher in the POLYFILM network working at Sheffield University. He received his PhD from the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at North Carolina State University in Raleigh, North Carolina, U.S.A. His past experience involved the use of Atom Transfer Radical Polymerization  (ATRP) to create combinatorial polymer brush-modified substrates for high-throughput analysis of polymer brush thin films. The overall molecular weight, (co)polymer composition, and grafting density of a brush surface directly affect the physical and chemical properties of the modified substrate. This key can be used to “tune” a substrate and to optimize its properties for specific applications.

ATRP has been shown to be one of the most powerful and flexible methods to prepare well-defined polymers of various compositions and molecular architectures whether synthesized in bulk or attached to substrates.

*Illustration from K. Matyjaszewki and J. Xia, Chem. Rev. 101, 2921 (2001)

Continuing Work Interest:

I am interested in characterizing polyelectrolyte brush films and determining the relationship between polymer grown on a substrate and solution-grown polymer grown under the same conditions. Polyelectrolytes posess unique "switchable" properties with respect to changes in pH, salt concentration, temperature. Accurate charaterization of these films is vital to understanding the fundamental behaviour of these switchable surfaces. This will ultimately lead to more accurate modeling of polyelectrolyte behavior.