Graftfast©: Towards the Control of Surface Properties of any Type of Materials by the Grafting of Polymers

This document aims at presenting and explaining the mechanism of a simple "green process", called Graftfast (c), recently developed in order to graft polymer films onto any type of materials. This process is of great interest as it works in a short one step reaction at room temperature, atmospheric pressure in water. Particularly since this method is a redox-induced process consisting in the reduction of diazonium salts into aryl radicals in presence of vinylic monomer, the involvement of such radicals was investigated. Moreover, this work demonstrates the efficiency of such process for the preparation of functionalized TiO2 nanoparticles. The composition and the grafted polymer quantities were investigated showing the successful grafting of the polymer onto the nanoparticles while conserving their morphology.