The development of new polymer nanoparticles through polymer collapse to control adhesion to leaf, seed, and soil surfaces

点击翻译按钮获取中文摘要

This project entails the development and characterization of polymer nanoparticles with enhanced adhesion to plant surfaces. First, model surfaces that represent leaf, seed, and soil surfaces will be created. Then, known polymer nanoparticle dispersions will be used to benchmark these surfaces using standard and non-standard surface characterization techniques. A novel use of contact angle measurements for characterizing polymer properties in a dispersion will be studied here. Next, we will design and obtain copolymers and polymer mixtures that we believe will have altered adhesion to plant surfaces, and change them into polymer nanoparticles using the polymer collapse method developed in our laboratory. We will also obtain natural polymers and find conditions under which nanoparticles can be formed from them. Last, these new polymer nanoparticles will be tested on the model plant surfaces to determine their adhesion characteristics. The results of this will provide us with a variety of polymer nanoparticles with different adhesion properties to leaf, seed, and soil surfaces.