Synthesis, Characterization, and Applications of Responsive Polymer Brush-Grafted Particles

In this dissertation, I present the synthesis, characterization, and applications of responsive polymer brush-grafted silica/crosslinked polymeric particles. The polymer brush-grafted particles were synthesized by surface-initiated "living"/controlled radical polymerizations from initiator-functionalized particles in the presence of free initiators. Two types of core particles were used in my research. One was silica particles, which were synthesized by Stöber method. The other one was crosslinked PtBA particles, which were prepared by seeded emulsion polymerization. The responsive properties of the grafted polymer brushes were characterized with ¹H NMR and Dynamic Light Scattering.