Marlena Filimon

Smart polymer surfaces: mapping chemical landscapes on the nanometre scale

We show that Scattering Infrared Near-field Microscopy (SNIM) allows chemical mapping of polymer monolayers that can serve as designed nanostructured surfaces with specific surface chemistry properties on a nm scale. Using s-SNIM a minimum volume of 100 nm × 100 nm × 15 nm is sufficient for a recording of a “chemical” IR signature which corresponds to an enhancement of at least four orders of magnitudes compared to conventional FT-IR microscopy. We could prove that even in cases where it is essentially difficult to distinguish between distinct polymer compositions based solely on topography, nanophase separated polymers can be clearly distinguished according to their characteristic near-field IR response.

Anomalous glass transition behavior of SBR?Al2O3 nanocomposites at small filler concentrations

Elastomers filled with hard nanoparticles are of great technical importance for the rubber industry. In general, fillers improve mechanical properties of polymer materials, e.g. elastic moduli, tensile strength etc. The smaller the size of the particles, the larger is the interface where interactions between polymer molecules and fillers can generate new properties. Using temperature-modulated differential scanning calorimetry and dynamic mechanical analysis, we investigated the properties of pure styrene-butadiene rubber (SBR) and SBR/alumina nanoparticles. Beside a reinforcement effect seen in the complex elastic moduli, small amounts of nanoparticles of about 2 wt% interestingly lead to an acceleration of the relaxation modes responsible for the thermal glass transition. This leads to a minimum in the glass transition temperature as a function of nanoparticle content in the vicinity of this critical concentration. The frequency dependent elastic moduli are used to discuss the possible reduction of the entanglement of rubber molecules as one cause for this unexpected behavior.

Comparative study of the effect of untreated, silanized and grafted alumina nanoparticles on thermal and dynamic mechanical properties of the styrene-butadiene rubber

Elastomers filled with hard nanoparticles are of great technical importance for the rubber industry. In general, fillers improve mechanical properties of polymer materials, e.g. elastic moduli, tensile strength etc. The smaller the size of the particles the larger is the interface where interactions between polymer molecules and fillers can generate new properties. Using Temperature Modulated Differential Scanning Calorimetry (TMDSC) and Dynamic Mechanical Analysis (DMA), we investigated the properties of the pure styrene-butadiene rubber (SBR), SBR/ alumina nanoparticles, SBR/silanized alumina and SBR/alumina grafted to polymer chains. Beside a general reinforcement effect seen in the complex elastic moduli, the studies revealed that: i) small concentrations of nanoparticles (of 1.5-2 wt%) lead to a minimum in the glass transition temperature as a function of nanoparticle content; ii) for the grafted nanocomposites increasing the nanoparticle concentration beyond 4 wt% yields an increase of Tg by 4 K; ii...

Chemical microscopy and nanoscopy of bio-materials and living cells

Raman microspectroscopy of human sperm cells and nearfield infrared microscopy of nanoscale biomaterials like nanografted DNA have been performed. A newly developed station for the ANKA-IR2 beamline combines several techniques to study the same sample at the same position.