Atmospheric Aerosol Assisted Pulsed Plasma Polymerization: An Environmentally Friendly Technique for Tunable Catechol-Bearing Thin Films.

In this work, an atmospheric aerosol assisted pulsed plasma process is reported as an environmentally friendly technique for the preparation of tunable catechol-bearing thin films under solvent and catalyst free conditions. The approach relies on the direct injection of dopamine acrylamide dissolved in 2-hydroxyethylmethacrylate as comonomer into the plasma zone. By adjusting the pulsing of the electrical discharge, the reactive plasma process can be alternatively switch ON (t) and OFF (t) during different periods of time, thus allowing a facile and fine tuning of the catechol density, morphology and deposition rate of the coating.

Kinetics of polydopamine film deposition as a function of pH and dopamine concentration: insights in the polydopamine deposition mechanism.

The formation of "polydopamine" thin films becomes a popular method to confer multifunctionality to solid-liquid interfaces through the available catechol groups of such films. The mechanism of film formation is, however, not well elucidated, and most investigators use the protocol developed by Messersmith et al. (H.