Aqueous Lubrication: Impact of Dispersity and Hydrogen Bonding on the Lubricity of Poly(acrylamide) Brushes (Adv. Mater. Interfaces 14/2019)

In the article number 1900321, Joydeb Mandal, Rok Simic, and Nicholas D. Spencer describe how hydrogen bonding can influence the performance of polymer brushes in aqueous lubrication. The brushes are prepared by surface-initiated atom-transfer radical polymerization (SI-ATRP) of acrylamide-based monomers. On the cover, the authors illustrate the lubricity of the polymer brushes by sliding a glass ball across a wet, brush-covered surface. The top section shows the H-bonding interactions between the tethered polymer chains and the glass surface at the sliding interface. The polymer chains are pulled in the sliding direction leading to higher friction when H-bonding occurs between the sliding surfaces.