Influence of solvent quality on structures within grafted polymer coatings

Polymers can be grafted to or grafted from surfaces to manipulate the properties of the surface. This can be used to prevent fouling of the surface or as an additional selective layer for separations. In good solvents and for long polymers, scaling theories can be used to understand the structure and properties of the polymer brush layer. However, in systems where attractions are important like poor solvents, the structure and properties are different and not easily described by simple theories. Here we show the results of simulations that include explicit solvent and attractions of the polymers and solvent. The structure of the brush depends on the solvent interactions and the processing conditions for making the brush layer.