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Plasma chemical methods are well suited for introducing functional groups to the surface of chemically inert polymers such as polyolefins. However, a broad variety of functional groups is often formed. Unfortunately, for further chemical processing such as grafting of molecules for advanced applications a highly dense and monotype functionalized polyolefin surface is needed. Therefore, the main task was to develop a selective surface functionalization process, which forms preferably one type of functional groups at the surface in high and variable concentration. Amongst the novel plasma methods, the under-water plasma process (UWP) is one of most attractive to solve the problem of monotype functionalization. Such plasma is an efficient source of ions, electrons, UV-radiation, high frequency shock waves, radicals such as hydroxyl radical and reactive neutral molecules such as hydrogen peroxide, hydrogen and oxygen. It was found that underwater plasma and the closely related glow discharge electrolysis are interesting new methods for polymer surface functionalization. An effective modification into the topmost surface chemistry of polymer layer was observed by the collective effect of wet-chemistry, electrochemistry, atmospheric gas discharges, irradiation, and shock waves. Underwater capillary discharge was seen more effective in -OH functionalization and was largely seen as a flow dominated process because of the shock wave turbulences. Using such water-based plasma a fraction of 25-40% of all O-functional groups was produced as OH-groups in comparison to <10% OH produced in the oxygen low- pressure plasma. The exact concentration of the OH functionality was studied by TFAA gas phase derivatization and measuring the respective fluorine concentration by photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS). In contrast to established gas phase glow discharge processes, the water phase absorbs and therefore limits the particle and radiation energy and thus the energy input into the polymer. Extensive oxidation, degradation, cross-linking and radical formation in the polymer is more limited than under gas plasma exposure because of the liquid water environment, which moderates high energetic plasma species. The variety of plasma produced species in the water phase is also much smaller because of the limited reaction possibilities of the plasma with water. The possibility to admix a broad variety of chemical additives makes underwater plasma additionally highly attractive for the chemist. At last, the water removes all low-molecular weight oxidized products formed by plasma-induced polymer degradation. Hydrogen peroxide and the catalyst (Fe-ZSM5) should influence or increase the equilibrium concentration of OH radicals in the underwater process. It was supposed that these radicals play the most important role for OH functionalization of polyolefin surfaces. Hydrogen peroxide was believed to be the most prominent precursor for OH group formation in the UWP. The catalyst should modulate the steady state of OH group formation and recombination, and thus accelerate the functionalization. This was confirmed by an increased oxidation rate. Owing to the detection limit of XPS the C-O bond selectivity was defined as clearly resolvable subpeak within the C1s signal assigned to C-OH, C-O-C and other singly C-O bonded species. This bondamounts 47 C-O bonds/100 O atoms with pure UWP system and enhances to a maximum of the 81 C-O bonds/100 O atoms using the Fe-ZSM5 catalyst system. Therefore, this method exhibits a great progress for a start. However, after TFAA derivatization the fraction of desired OH groups could not be significantly increased. In the continuation acetic acid, acrylic acid, maleic and itaconic acid were used as additive monomers. The chemical selectivity in -COOH bond formation using bi-carboxylic additives was seen inferior. Acetic acid is not a chemically polymerizing monomer but it could polymerize by monomer/molecular fragmentation and recombination to a cross linked layer. The other monomers form preferably water-soluble polymers on a preferred chemical way. Only the fragmented fraction of these monomers could form an insoluble coating by cross linking to substrate. The XPS analysis was used to track the alterations in COO- bond percentage on the PP surface. To identify the -COOH groups on substrate surface unambiguously, which have survived the plasma polymerization process, the gas phase derivatization with trifluoroethanol was performed. A much higher yield in COOH groups was achieved using the glow discharge electrolysis and acrylic acid.
The reduced size of nanoparticles (diameter < 100 nm) confers them high specific surface areas and permeability through many biological pathways resulting in high interaction with biological systems. Therefore, in the recent years, nanoparticles (NPs) have increasingly found many applications in biomedical research. Herein, silica-based NPs are among the most promising candidates for biomedical studies due to their relative low toxicity and the possibility of functional variability. The main focus of this thesis work has been the synthesis and characterisation of novel hybrid NPs with enhanced properties for biomedical studies. More specifically, suppression of protein adsorption and achievement of highly fluorescent NPs in serum-rich media are well focused. First, a chemical strategy for the preparation of highly fluorescent silica nanoparticles by covalent attachment of Alexa dyes and subsequent shielding by an additional pure silica shell is well presented. These nanoparticles were investigated by Dynamic light scattering (DLS), Transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and fluorescence spectroscopy, the latter includes determination of absolute fluorescence quantum yields of such scattering suspensions with an integrating sphere setup and the assignment of fluorescence intensity values. At low shelling extension core-shell fluorescent silica nanoparticles show smooth surfaces and high quantum yields, even comparable to those for free dyes. However, by increasing the amount of shell precursor, nanoparticle surfaces show raspberry morphologies and decay of the quantum yields. Secondly, two different types of novel silica-poly(ethylene glycol) hybrid nanoparticles (H- SiO2-PEG and G- SiO2@PEG) have been synthesized by use of the same polymer precursor: Here the influence of concentration of the polymer precursor poly(ethylene glycol) methyl ether-3-(triethoxysilyl) propyl urethane (mPEG-IPTES) on the particle properties was scrutinised. For polymer grafted NPs, the concentration of polymer precursor increases the PEG density and the hydrophobicity of the NPs surface. On the other hand, for condensated NPs, the polymer precursor influences the size, but not the density of polymer chains on the NPs surface, which indicates that PEG on the surface of the NPs effectively reduces the adsorption of Bovine serum albumin (BSA). Finally, the influence of polymer length on the ability to repel BSA adsorption onto nanoparticles is reported. SNPs@PEG with different molecular weights (mPEG: 350, 2000 and 5000 g/mol) were synthesized by nucleophilic substitution of tosylated mPEG to aminated silica nanoparticles (chemical grafting). The resulted hybrid nanoparticles were consistently characterized by DLS, TEM, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), Thermogravimetric analysis (TGA) and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS). BSA at different concentrations were used as a model protein to study the protein-corona formation after adsorption onto the pristine and modified nanoparticles (SNPs@PEG). For pristine SNPs and SNPs@PEG (MW = 350 g/mol), zeta potential at different incubation times (0, 24 and 48 h) show a dynamic evolution of the nanoparticle-protein corona. Conversely, for SNPs@PEG with MW ≥ 2000 g/mol, a significant suppression of corona formation and time evolution was observed. In resume, protein corona is strongly influenced by the adsorption inhibition of PEG surfaces.