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

该项目需要开发和表征具有增强植物表面粘附性的聚合物纳米颗粒。首先，将创建表示树叶、种子和土壤表面的模型曲面。然后，已知的聚合物纳米粒子分散体将被用来使用标准和非标准表面表征技术对这些表面进行基准测试。这里将研究接触角测量用于表征分散体中的聚合物性质的一种新用途。接下来，我们将设计和获得我们认为会改变对植物表面粘附性的共聚物和聚合物混合物，并使用我们实验室开发的聚合物塌陷方法将它们转变为聚合物纳米颗粒。我们还将获得天然聚合物，并找到由它们形成纳米颗粒的条件。最后，这些新的聚合物纳米颗粒将在模型植物表面进行测试，以确定它们的黏附特性。这一结果将为我们提供各种各样的聚合物纳米颗粒，这些纳米颗粒具有不同的粘附性，可以附着在树叶、种子和土壤表面。

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.