Influence of poly(ethylene glycol) block length on the adsorption of thermoresponsive copolymers onto gold surfaces

The adsorption of a series of four poly(N-isopropylacrylamide)-based copolymers composed of a hydrophilic block of methoxy poly(ethylene glycol) (MPEG) with a variable length and a PNIPAAM block of fixed size (MPEGn-b-PNIPAAM71) onto flat and spherical citrate-coated gold surfaces has been investigated. The adsorption onto planar surfaces was studied by means of the quartz crystal microbalance with dissipation monitoring, whereas polymer adsorption onto gold nanoparticles was examined using dynamic light scattering and visible spectroscopy. Experiments were performed with two different concentrations of polymer in bulk solution, namely 0.05 and 0.0005 wt%. The influence of the MPEG length on the thickness of the adsorbed layer on the nanoparticles, and the adsorbed mass onto the planar surfaces were recorded at different temperatures.