综述了近年来聚合物刷合成与应用方面的新进展. 简要介绍了利用表面引发原子转移自由基聚合(SI-ATRP)制备聚合物刷的历程和重要进展. 重点论述了通过电化学、光诱导以及牺牲阳极技术、仿生合成等发展了多种表面引发ATRP新方法, 基于如何将聚合物从分子尺度过渡到微米尺度的思考,实现了多尺度聚合物刷结构的制备. 简要综述了聚合物刷在以下3个方面的应用研究: (1)智能驱动, 利用聚合物刷构象变化,实现微悬臂驱动、辅助放大的电驱动以及仿毛毛虫运动. (2)生物润滑, 利用聚合物的环境响应行为实现了对摩擦系数的调控, 并发展了球刷型润滑材料. (3)表面防污, 表面接枝含离子液体官能团的聚合物刷, 并与仿生技术相结合, 利用化学组成和结构化协同效应, 得到一系列高性能低毒海洋防污界面材料.

Recent advances in surface-initiated polymer brushes and specific applications in various research fields are reviewed, the development of surface-initiated atom radical polymerization (SI-ATRP) is highlighted. The general surface modification method is described in detail to realize functional modification on almost all substrates. The combination of the surface-initiated polymerization with other soft lithography techniques, e.g., micro-contacting printing enables the easy surface functionalization with various surface morphologies such as pattern and gradient. The fundamental mechanistic and synthetic features of SI-ATRP are discussed and some new techniques particularly external-stimuli mediated catalytic and initiation systems are highlighted, including electrochemistry, chemical reducing agents and photochemistry, which have many potential applications in fields such as lubrication, anti-fouling and so on. These methods have solved problems occurring in traditional SI-ATRP, such as inert atmosphere protection, poor controllability, difficulty to recycle monomers, and single modification of substrates. Besides, polymer brush with micrometer scale prepared by using anodic aluminium oxide as a template create multi-scale structures on surfaces. Applications of polymer brush are reviewed mainly in three aspects in this review. (1) Smart actuation : external-stimuli responsive polymer brushes coated substrates can be used as a smart actuator due to the conformation changes of the polymer chains when surrounding environment changes, for example, performing the worm-like movements. (2) Bio-lubrication : polymer brushes have been used as effective lubricating materials on surfaces and the frictional coefficient can be regulated by changing the solvent conditions. (3) Antifouling: Polyelectrolyte brush grafted substrates have been found many applications in biological fields such as antifouling coatings, a series of high performance, low toxicity marine antifouling materials have been developed by taking the advantages of the synergistic effect of the unique surface compositions and structures of polymer brushes. In all, newly developed external stimuli regulated surface-initiated ATRP methods are presented to show how they can be advantageously used to produce multi-functional polymer brushes, which have been widely used as advanced coatings to modify surface properties.