Fabrication of polymer nanostructures (microplastic)

Abstract

The rising concern of unintentionally consuming microplastics and its harmful impacts on human health have sparked the need for further research to be done on how these effects can be reduced or negated. In addition, plastic material has the potential to create new applications and inventions that can improve the standard of living and quality of life for humankind. Hence, it is important to investigate the properties of such microplastics by conducting a series of experiments with different parameters and methods to fabricate plastic nanowires on the microplastic samples. The nanowires imprinted onto the microplastics are ‘dry adhesive’ materials that do not contain any liquid solvent. The motivation of dry adhesives derives from the gecko-adhesive properties of the gecko creature, where they can attach and detach onto various surfaces while having self-cleaning properties to remove impurities trapped between the foot hairs [1]. Hence, the objective of this experiment is to fabricate the plastic nanowires on the microplastic samples with this similar analogy in check. In addition to discussions about current fabrication methods that have been done by other experts in this field of study, this report also covers the experiments and processes of fabricating specific polymer materials, namely Polystyrene (PS) and Poly(methyl methacrylate) (PMMA), by the process of room temperature nanoimprinting to imprint nanowires on these materials. Successful fabrications have shown the dimension of the nanowires to be approximately within a range of 1 to 10 μm under the observations of the SEM. In addition, a preliminary adhesion test was successfully conducted in which two PS samples displayed adhesive properties on the surface of a Styrofoam cup. The possible applications based on these results and the further research that may improve the fabrication processes were also discussed.