Iron-mediated surface-initiated reversible deactivation radical polymerization (Fe⁰ SI-RDRP) is an appealing approach to produce robust polymer surfaces with low toxicity and biocompatibility, while its application has been limited so far due to the poor activity of iron-based catalysts. Herein, we show that the iron(0)-mediated surface-initiated atom transfer radical polymerization (Fe⁰ SI-ATRP) could be significantly enhanced by simply using seawater as reaction media. In comparison, there was no polymer brush formation in deionized water. This method could convert a range of monomers to well-defined polymer brushes with unparalleled speed (up to 31.5 nm min^–1) and a minor amount of monomer consumption (μL). Moreover, the resultant polymer brush shows chain-end fidelity which could be exemplified by repetitive Fe⁰ SI-ATRP to obtain tetrablock brushes. Finally, we show the preparation of polymer-brush-gated ion-selective membranes by Fe⁰ SI-ATRP for osmotic energy conversion, which gives excellent power densities of 5.93 W m^–2, outperforming the most reported as well as commercialized benchmark (5 W m^–2).

中文翻译：

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用于功能性聚合物刷工程的海水促进表面引发原子转移自由基聚合

铁介导的表面引发的可逆失活自由基聚合（Fe ⁰ SI-RDRP）是一种有吸引力的方法来生产具有低毒性和生物相容性的坚固聚合物表面，但由于铁基催化剂的活性较差，迄今为止其应用受到限制. 在这里，我们表明铁（0）介导的表面引发原子转移自由基聚合（Fe ⁰ SI-ATRP）可以通过简单地使用海水作为反应介质来显着增强。相比之下，去离子水中没有聚合物刷形成。^{这种方法可以以无与伦比的速度（高达 31.5 nm min –1}）将一系列单体转化为定义明确的聚合物刷) 和少量单体消耗 (μL)。此外，所得聚合物刷显示出链端保真度，这可以通过重复的 Fe ⁰ SI-ATRP 来举例说明以获得四嵌段刷。^{最后，我们展示了通过 Fe 0} SI-ATRP制备用于渗透能量转换的聚合物刷门控离子选择性膜，它提供了 5.93 W m ^-2的出色功率密度，超过了报道最多的以及商业化的基准（5 W m ^–2 )。