Ring-Opening Metathesis Polymerization in Aqueous Media Using a Macroinitiator Approach

Jeffrey C. Foster, Spyridon Varlas, Lewis D. Blackman, Lucy A. Arkinstall, Rachel K. O'Reilly

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

82 Scopus citations

Abstract

Water-soluble and amphiphilic polymers are of great interest to industry and academia, as they can be used in applications such as biomaterials and drug delivery. Whilst ring-opening metathesis polymerization (ROMP) is a fast and functional group tolerant methodology for the synthesis of a wide range of polymers, its full potential for the synthesis of water-soluble polymers has yet to be realized. To address this, we report a general strategy for the synthesis of block copolymers in aqueous milieu using a commercially available ROMP catalyst and a macroinitiator approach. This allows for excellent control in the preparation of block copolymers in water. If the second monomer is chosen such that it forms a water-insoluble polymer, polymerization-induced self-assembly (PISA) occurs and a variety of self-assembled nano-object morphologies can be accessed.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)10672-10676
Number of pages5
JournalAngewandte Chemie - International Edition
Volume57
Issue number33
DOIs
StatePublished - Aug 13 2018
Externally publishedYes

Funding

This work was supported by the ERC (grant number 615142), EPSRC and University of Warwick. We thank Dr. S. Bakker and Mr. R. Keogh (University of Warwick) for cryo-TEM assistance, Mr. Z. Hua for dry-state TEM assistance, and the Advanced BioImaging Research Technology Platform, BBSRC ALERT14 award BB/M01228X/1 for supporting cryo-TEM analysis.

Keywords

  • Grubbs catalysts
  • aqueous polymerization
  • block copolymers
  • polymerization-induced self-assembly
  • ring-opening metathesis polymerization

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'Ring-Opening Metathesis Polymerization in Aqueous Media Using a Macroinitiator Approach'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this