Modification of porous and non-porous materials using self-assembled monolayers

A method of modifying the exposed surface of porous and non-porous organic polymer material by using self-assembled monolayers, comprising:

• providing a multiplicity of bifunctional organic molecules, each bifunctional organic molecule comprise a bolaamphiphile having opposite functional head groups and a chain between the head groups which each have mutual cooperative attraction selected from the group consisting of hydrogen bonding, .pi.--.pi. interaction and hydrophobic interaction with each other;
• self-assembling a monolayer by bonding one head group of the multiplicity of bifunctional organic molecules to the polymer material to form a self-assembled monolayer on the polymer material with opposite head groups of the multiplicity of bifunctional organic molecules forming a new exposed surface and self-assembly into the monolayer being effected by the mutual cooperative attraction between the chains of the bolaamphiphiles;
• and
• modifying the new exposed surface by chemical reaction of the outer head groups of the multiplicity of bifunctional organic molecules in the monolayer.