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Stereocomplexation in novel degradable amphiphilic block copolymer micelles of poly(ethylene oxide) and poly(benzyl [alpha]-malate)
journal contribution
posted on 2016-10-17, 13:54 authored by Ryan J. Pounder, Helen WillcockHelen Willcock, Nga Sze Ieong, Rachel K. O'Reilly, Andrew P. DoveThe ring-opening polymerization of 5-(S)-[(benzyloxycarbonyl)methyl]-1,3- dioxolane-2,4-dione (l-malOCA) and 5-(R)-[(benzyloxycarbonyl)methyl]-1,3- dioxolane-2,4-dione (d-malOCA) from poly(ethylene oxide), PEO, macroinitiators using 4-methoxypyridine as the catalyst is reported. The self-assembly of these polymeric amphiphiles was shown to proceed most efficiently by a solvent switch methodology from THF to nanopure H 2O. Variation of the block lengths revealed that, as expected, larger block copolymers led to increased micelle dimensions as determined by dynamic light scattering (DLS) and transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and longer hydrophobic blocks led to increased micelle stabilities as determined by measurement of the critical micelle concentration (CMC). Furthermore, the self-assembly of equimolar mixtures of PEO-b-P(l-BMA) and PEO-b-P(d-BMA) resulted in micelles of increased sizes by both DLS and TEM analysis. These micelles also have a CMC value of 5.53 × 10 -3 g L -1 which is markedly lower than micelles formed from either enantiopure block copolymer (CMC values = 1.23 × 10 -2 g L -1 and 9.78 × 10 -3 g L -1 for micelles formed from PEO-b-P(l-BMA) and PEO-b-P(d-BMA) respectively).
Funding
We gratefully acknowledge the support provided by Research Councils UK (RCUK) for funding a fellowship to A.P.D. EPSRC (EP/G004897/1) is also acknowledged for funding a fellowship (R.O'R).
History
School
- Aeronautical, Automotive, Chemical and Materials Engineering
Department
- Materials
Published in
Soft MatterVolume
7Issue
22Pages
10987 - 10993Citation
POUNDER, R. ... et al., 2011. Stereocomplexation in novel degradable amphiphilic block copolymer micelles of poly(ethylene oxide) and poly(benzyl [alpha]-malate). Soft Matter, 7 (22), pp.10987-10993.Publisher
© Royal Society of ChemistryVersion
- AM (Accepted Manuscript)
Publisher statement
This work is made available according to the conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0) licence. Full details of this licence are available at: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/Publication date
2011ISSN
1744-683XeISSN
1744-6848Publisher version
Language
- en