Front Cover: Hydrophobic Surface Coating of Nanodiamonds by Polyglycerol‐Based Polymers with Alkyl Chains for Dispersing in an Organic Solvent (ChemNanoMat 9/2020)

Dispersing nanodiamond (ND) in an organic solvent has been realized by surface functionalization with hydrophobic polymers. The following two types of “grafting from” processes are applied to the ND surface coating; 1) ring opening polymerization of 1,2-epoxyhexane giving ND functionalized with poly(1,2-hexylene glycol) (ND-PHG) and 2) ring opening polymerization of glycidol followed by Williamson ether synthesis giving ND functionalized with octyl and tetradecyl groups (ND-POPG and ND-PTPG, respectively). ND-POPG and ND-PTPG are found to show much higher dispersibility (∼5 mg/mL in chloroform) than ND-PHG (∼0.3 mg/mL). More information can be found in the Full Paper by Naoki Komatsu et al.