Archive for the ‘Editorial Board’s Top Picks’ Category

Editorial Board’s Top Picks: Emily Pentzer

Emily Pentzer is an Associate Editor for Polymer Chemistry and an Assistant Professor of Chemistry at Case Western Reserve University, USA. Her research addresses application-based materials problems in the areas of energy harvesting, management, and storage. She uses synthetic chemistry to tailor molecular design and control self-assembly for the preparation and study of novel conductive materials with controlled domain sizes and interfaces.

You can find all Editorial Board’s Top Picks papers in our web collection.



Focus on PAH building blocks for electronically active and porous polymers (Associate Editor: Prof Emily Pentzer Case Western Reserve University, USA)

Polyaromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) are attractive building blocks for electronically active and porous organic polymers. For these applications, the preparation and isolation of appropriate polymeric structures is needed to provide the desired properties. PAHs are typically incorporated into conjugated polymers by transition metal-catalyzed cross-coupling reactions, and their solubility and solution processability is ensured by substitution with alkyl groups; recent interest has focused on accessing reduced band gap structures.  Alternatively, for the preparation of porous organic polymers, the tendency of PAHs to aggregate through p-p interactions must be overcome, and alkyl groups are disadvantageous for gas adsorption/storage.  Recent advances in the design and synthesis of PAH-containing polymers have helped expand the usefulness of these heteroatom-free systems.

1. Anthanthrene as a large PAH building block for the synthesis of conjugated polymers
Antoine Lafleur-Lambert, Jean-Benoît Giguère and Jean-Francois Morin
Polym. Chem., 2015, 6, 4859-4863

Aromatic anthanthrene is readily available from the common dye vat orange 3 and can be used to prepare PAH-containing polymers.  Morin and coworkers report the preparation of a series of anthanthrene-based conjugated polymers. The anthanthrene unit has branched alkyl substituents to control solubility and was copolymerized with electron rich and electron poor aryl comonomers. The absorption spectra of these polymers range from 450 to 850 nm, depending on the constituent materials. The series of novel polymers all showed similar LUMO levels, and variation of the HOMO levels show no trends based on the comonomer identity. These results indicate that both the HOMO and the LUMO orbitals are located on the anthanthrene units, and are not heavily influenced by the comonomer identity.

2. Dicyclopenta[cd,jk]pyrene based acceptors in conjugated polymers
Sambasiva R. Bheemireddy and Kyle N. Plunkett
Polym. Chem., 2016, Advance Article

In this study, Plunkett and Bheemireddy report the use of the PAH dicyclopentapyrene, as an acceptor unit in conjugated polymers. This alkylated monomer was copolymerized with various electron donor comonomers including thiophene, bithiophene, and diethynyl benzene. In the thin film, these polymers show broad absorption profiles, from ~320-720 nm, corresponding to band gaps of ~1.7 eV. The identity of the comonomer with the PAH had little influence on the HOMO and LUMO levels, inconsistent with traditional donor-acceptor theory for reduced bandgap materials.  In fact, DFT calculations show the LUMO orbital distribution across the series is essentially unchanged and mostly located on the PAH unit (as expected), but surprisingly, the HOMO orbitals are also localized to the PAH unit for the thiophene and bithiophene polymers.

3. Di(naphthalen-2-yl)-1,2-diphenylethene-based conjugated polymers: aggregation-enhanced emission and explosive detection
Mengxia Gao, Yue Wu, Bin Chen, Bairong He, Han Nie, Tingyan Li, Fupeng Wu, Wenjun Zhou, Jian Zhou and Zujin Zhao
Polym. Chem., 2015, 6, 7641-7645

Di(naphthalene-2-yl)-1,2-diphenylethene is used as a building block by Zhao and coworkers to prepare fluorescent conjugated polymers which show aggregation induced emission. Addition of the poor solvent water to these polymers in THF causes them to aggregate and essentially turns on the fluorescence of the materials by preventing non-radiative excited state decay. DFT calculations show the HOMO and LUMO orbitals are significantly distributed over both comonomers, as well as the pendant naphthyl groups, indicating good intramolecular orbital overlap. These materials further show potential to detect explosives under aqueous conditions, as the fluorescence is quenched in the presence of picric acid.

4. Facile approach for preparing porous organic polymers through Bergman cyclization
Xian-Mei Zhang, Xuesong Ding, Aiguo Hu and Bao-Hang Han
Polym. Chem., 2015, 6, 4734-4741

The Bergman cyclization reaction was used to prepare microporous polymers from a triphenylene-based monomer that contains three ene-diyne moieties. This catalyst-free and thermally induced intramolecular cyclization produces three 1,4-benzene biradical per monomer that undergo intermolecular coupling to yield the porous polymer. Although the monomers themselves are planar, they link together in a non-planar fashion to give a porous, high surface area material. Han and coworkers then demonstrate that the novel micorporous polymers show high adsorption capacity for both hydrogen and carbon dioxide.

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Editorial Board’s Top Picks: Bin Liu

Bin Liu is an Associate Editor for Polymer Chemistry and Dean’s Chair Professor at the Department of Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering, National University of Singapore (NUS), Singapore. Her research focuses on the development of organic functional materials and the exploration of their applications in sensing, imaging and solar cells.

You can find all Editorial Board’s Top Picks papers in our web collection



Focus on Responsive Polymers (Associate Editor: Prof Bin Liu, NUS, Singapore)

1. Voltage-responsive micelles based on the assembly of two biocompatible homopolymers
Liao Peng, Anchao Feng, Huijuan Zhang, Hong Wang, Chunmei Jian, Bowen Liu, Weiping Gao and Jinying Yuan. Polym. Chem. 2014, 5, 1751-1759.

Effective drug delivery and drug release systems in vivo generally require drug carriers to specifically respond to external stimuli. J. Yuan and coworkers from Tsinghua University (China) have synthesized voltage-responsive biocompatible micelles based on two host and guest molecules, poly(ethylene glycol) homopolymer modified with beta-CD (PEG-beta-CD) and the poly(L-lactide) homopolymer modified with Fc (PLLA-Fc). A reversible assembly- disassembly transition of this micellar system was realized through electrochemical control and voltage-controlled drug release was also successfully demonstrated.

2. Reversibly crosslinked thermo- and redox-responsive nanogels for controlled drug release
Ji Liu, Christophe Detrembleur, Marie Hurtgen, Antoine Debuigne, Marie-Claire De Pauw-Gillet, Stéphane Mornet, Etienne Duguet and Christine Jérôme. Polym. Chem. 2014, 5, 77-88.

Micelle assembly using crosslinking could minimize the premature drug delivery usually observed in physically assembled micelles. C. Detrembleur, C. Jérôme and coworkers from the University of Liege (Belgium) have prepared reversibly crosslinked poly(vinyl alcohol)-b-poly(N-vinylcaprolactam) PVOH-b-PNVCL nanogel by using a redox-responsive crosslinking agent, and demonstrate its effectiveness in thermo- and redox responsive drug delivery using Nile red (NR) as a hydrophobic drug model.

3. Light-responsive linear-dendritic amphiphilles and their nanomedicines for NIR-triggered drug release
Lin Sun, Bangshang Zhu, Yue Su and Chang-Ming Dong. Polym. Chem. 2014, 5, 1605-1613.

Development of new-generation polymeric nanomedicines with spatiotemporal and/or on-demand drug-release behaviour is in high demand for clinical therapies and personalized medicines. Taking advantage of the stealthy properties of biocompatible PEO and the multivalent periphery properties of dendritic polymers, C. M. Dong and coworkers at Shanghai Jiao Tong University in China, have reported the synthesis of both ultraviolet (UV) and near-infrared (NIR) light-responsive linear-dendritic amphiphiles, which have been successfully used for light-triggered drug release.

Review article

1. Multi-stimuli responsive polymers – the all-in-one talents
Philipp Schattling, Florian D. Jochum and Patrick Theato. Polym. Chem. 2014, 5, 25-36.

The manifold applications of in stimuli-responsive polymers have spurred increasing research interest in the field.  The combination of multiple responsive groups into one polymer may produce a multi-functional polymer which exhibits a multifaceted change of material properties when applying one or more external stimuli.  In this review article, P. Theato et. al. at University Hamburg in Germany, summarised recent developments in the area of multi-stimuli responsive polymers with more than two responsive groups and highlighted a number of fascinating examples. These multi-responsive materials will open up opportunities for development of both life science and information technology.

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Editorial Board’s Top Picks: Ben Zhong Tang

Ben Zhong Tang is an Associate Editor for Polymer Chemistry and a Chair Professor in the Department of Chemistry, The Hong Kong University of Science & Technology (HKUST), China. His research focuses on the synthesis of new molecules and polymers with novel structures and unique functions and the exploration of their high-tech applications as advanced materials in life science, optoelectronic devices, etc.

You can find all Editorial Board’s Top Picks papers in our web collection


Focus on Luminogenic Polymers (Associate Editor: Prof. Ben Zhong Tang, HKUST, China)

1. A fluorescent supramolecular polymer with aggregation induced emission (AIE) properties formed by crown ether-based host–guest interactions
Dong Chen, Jiayi Zhan, Mingming Zhang, Jing Zhang, Jiaju Tao, Danting Tang, Ailin Shen, Huayu Qiu and Shouchun Yin
Polym. Chem. 2015, 6, 25–29.

Supramolecular polymers are a group of novel macromolecules with their monomeric units self-assembled together through monovalent interactions. S. Yin and coworkers at Hangzhou Normal University (China) and University of Maryland (USA) have synthesized a new supramolecular polymer by utilizing crown ether-based host–guest interactions. The supramolecular polymer shows aggregation-induced emission, thanks to the tetraphenylethene units imbedded in the macromolecular chain. Its fluorescence intensity is decreased dramatically on the addition of Pd2+ due to the coordination of the metal ion with the triazole group, enabling the polymer to find practical application as a fluorescent chemosensor.

2. Amphiphilic fluorescent copolymers via one-pot combination of chemoenzymatic transesterification and RAFT polymerization: synthesis, self-assembly and cell imaging
Zengfang Huang, Xiqi Zhang, Xiaoyong Zhang, Changkui Fu, Ke Wang, Jinying Yuan, Lei Tao and Yen Wei
Polym. Chem. 2015, 6, 607–612.

Fluorescent organic nanoparticles (FONs) have attracted much attention. Many FONs, however, are hydrophobic particles and have been fabricated by non-covalent strategies. Z. Huang and coworkers at University of Electronic Science & Technology of China and Tsinghua University have combined radical polymerization and enzymatic transesterification processes and developed a one-pot covalent procedure for the fabrication of FONs with aggregation-induced emission (AIE) attribute. The amphiphilic chains of the obtained polymers self-assemble into spherical FONs with the hydrophobic AIE cores covered by hydrophilic poly(ethylene glycol) shells. The FONs show excellent dispersibility in aqueous media, compatibility with biological species, and performance as bioimaging reagent.

3. Aggregation-induced circularly polarized luminescence of an (R)-binaphthyl-based AIE-active chiral conjugated polymer with self-assembled helical nanofibers
Shuwei Zhang, Yuan Sheng, Guo Wei, Yiwu Quan, Yixiang Cheng and Chengjian Zhu
Polym. Chem. 2015, 6, 2416–2422.

A number of polymers with atomic chirality have been found to emit circularly polarized luminescence (CPL). Polymers with axial chirality, however, have been rarely prepared. A team led by Y. Cheng and C. Zhu at Nanjing University (China) have synthesized a series of conjugated polymers containing (R)-binaphthylene and tetraphenylethene (TPE) units with axial chirality and aggregation-induced emission (AIE). All the polymers show AIE effects, thanks to the TPE units embedded in the polymer chains. When the polymers form aggregates in aqueous mixtures, a polymer with the “right” structure becomes CPL active. The aggregation-induced CPL effect of the polymer is tunable by changing the water content of the aqueous mixture.

Review article

Luminescent polymers and blends with hydrogen bond interactions
Shih-Hung Huang, Yeo-Wan Chiang and Jin-Long Hong
Polym. Chem. 2015, 6, 497–508.

Macromolecular luminogens with aggregation-induced emission (AIE) characteristics are useful functional materials because they emit strongly in the aggregate or solid state. As the restriction of intramolecular rotations of luminogens is the main cause for the AIE activity, it has been envisioned that hydrogen-bond interactions can be utilized to construct AIE-active polymers. J.-L. Hong and coworkers have summarized the research effort in the area of AIE study. Through appropriate choices of H-bonding units and sites, a variety of AIE-active polymers and blends have been conveniently generated. In the polymers containing multiple luminogen units, the entangling polymer chains and the intermolecular H-bonding interactions impose effective rotational restriction on the luminogens. In the hydrophilic polymers carrying single luminogens, ready aggregation of the hydrophobic luminogens from the phase-separated H-bonding sites reinforces the beneficial rotational restriction, resulting in AIE systems with intense light emissions. In the luminogenic polymer blends consisting of H-bonding donors and acceptors, the preferable intermolecular H-bond interactions effectively hamper the motion of the constituent components. Thanks to the effective intermolecular H-bond interactions, the blends emit more efficiently than their pure luminogen counterparts without H-bond interactions.

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Editorial Board’s Top Picks: Wei You

Wei You is an Associate Editor for Polymer Chemistry and an Associate Professor in the Department of Chemistry, University of North Carolina Chapel Hill, USA. His research focuses on the synthesis and characterization of novel multifunctional materials for a variety of applications, predominately in electronics and photonics. Wei’s group uses an interdisciplinary approach, interfacing chemistry, physics, materials science and engineering.

You can find all Editorial Board’s Top Picks papers in our web collection


Focus on Conjugated Polymers (Associate Editor: Prof. Wei You, UNC Chapel Hill, USA)


Conjugated polymers, due to their interesting optical and electrochemical properties, have found many applications, from solar cells, to light-emitting diodes, transistors, and sensors, to name a few. Design and synthesis of novel conjugated polymers have been a very research-active area, illustrated by the fact that Polymer Chemistry has published more than 450 contributions in the past five years (~10% of the total number of publications).

In my Editorial Board’s Top Picks, I highlight four papers, and two review articles:

1. Benzodifuran-alt-thienothiophene based low band gap copolymers: substituent effects on their molecular energy levels and photovoltaic propertiesLijun Huo, Zhaojun Li, Xia Guo, Yue Wu, Maojie Zhang, Long Ye, Shaoqing Zhang and Jianhui Hou
Polym. Chem., 2013,4, 3047-3056

Conjugated polymers for solar cells is one of hottest research areas in the past decade. Hou’s group took the conjugated backbone of benzodifuran-alt-thieno[3,4-b]thiophene (BDF-alt-TT) to carry out a comprehensive study on the impact of electron-withdrawing group on the optical and electrochemical properties of the parent polymer. It is an elegant study that covers design and synthesis, physical properties, computational modeling, and photovoltaic device characteristics. Such a comprehensive study of structure-property relationship is very impressive and useful to the field of conjugated polymer for solar cells.

2. Synthesis of donor–acceptor conjugated polymers based on benzo[1,2-b:4,5-b′]dithiophene and 2,1,3-benzothiadiazole via direct arylation polycondensation: towards efficient C–H activation in nonpolar solvents
Xiaochen Wang and Mingfeng Wang
Polym. Chem., 2014,5, 5784-5792

Though most conjugated polymers are made through Stille, Suzuki type polycondensations, recently, direct-arylation cross-coupling has emerged as an economically efficient and environment-friendly approach. Wang’s group focused on a particular polymer, PBDTBT, consists of alternating benzo[1,2-b:4,5-b0]dithiophene (BDT) as an electron donor (D) and 2,1,3-benzothiadiazole (BT) as the electron acceptor (A). What is really impressive is that they systematically investigated almost all reaction factors including catalysts, solvents, ligands, bases, additives, concentration of reactants and phase transfer agents. The great efforts had a good payoff: their optimized condition was able to achieve a weight averagemolecular weight (Mw) as high as 60 kg/mol in nearly quantitative yield and excellent C–H selectivity.

3. Optical and electrical properties of dithienothiophene based conjugated polymers: medium donor vs. weak, medium, and strong acceptors
Bijitha Balan, Chakkooth Vijayakumar, Akinori Saeki, Yoshiko Koizumi, Masashi Tsuji and Shu Seki
Polym. Chem., 2013,4, 2293-2303

Donor-acceptor to create conjugated polymers is the most popular approach to control the band gap and energy level of conjugated polymers. The Seki group conducted an interesting study to investigate the strength of acceptor (weak, medium and strong) with a fixed donor, dithienothiophene in deciding optical and electrochemical properties of the resulting polymers. Furthermore, they did the computational modeling and device mobilities with different methods. An elegant work with thorough synthetic details and comprehensive study.

4. Low band-gap benzothiadiazole conjugated microporous polymers
Shijie Ren, Robert Dawson, Dave J. Adams and Andrew I. Cooper
Polym. Chem., 2013,4, 5585-5590

Conjugated microporous polymers (CMPs), combining microporosity, high surface areas with extended conjugation, can find a range of potential applications, including light-harvesting and sensing. The Cooper group created a low band gap CMP by incorporating the popular benzothiadiazole unit, via transition metal catalyzed cross-coupling polycondensation. Most interestingly, the fluorescence of one of the polymers was quenched by the inclusion of C60 in the pores, demonstrating the potential applications of such materials in efficient light harvesting or energy conversion.

Review articles:

1. Controlled polymerizations for the synthesis of semiconducting conjugated polymers
Ken Okamoto and Christine K. Luscombe
Polym. Chem., 2011,2, 2424-2434

Conjugated polymers synthesize by chain-growth mechanism (directly or indirectly), though much less explored when compared with the more popular step-growth mechanism, offer a number of unique advantages, including controlled molecular weight, low dispersity, and ease of preparing block copolymers. This review by the Luscombe group provided a rather comprehensive review (up to 2011) on this topic, covering various controlled polymerization methods to synthesize conjugated polymers, including living anion polymerization, ring-opening metathesis polymerization and chain-growth condensation polymerization.

2. Well-defined two dimensional covalent organic polymers: rational design, controlled syntheses, and potential applications
Zhonghua Xiang, Dapeng Cao and Liming Dai
Polym. Chem., 2015,6, 1896-1911

Two-dimensional (2D) covalent organic polymers (COPs) and derivatives are an emerging category of conjugated polymers, which hold great potential for a large variety of applications, including gas storage, energy conversion and storage, and sensing. The Dai group reviewed the recent progress in this exciting field of research, covering the rational design, controlled syntheses and potential applications of 2D COPs with various well-defined structures and properties. An up-to-date review on this topic with many beautiful structures.

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The Editorial Board pick their favourite Polymer Chemistry articles

Polymer Chemistry is dedicated to publishing the most exciting research encompassing all aspects of synthetic and biological macromolecules, and related emerging areas. As well as a dedicated readership, our Editorial Board members are also passionate consumers of journal content. We felt, therefore, that it might be useful for our Editorial Board to direct readers towards the papers published in the journal they find most exciting, based on their personal interests.

In our new “Editorial Board’s Top Picks” section of the journal blog, Editorial Board members will, in turn, highlight their favourite papers.

Accompanying the blog posts, is a web collection of the selected Polymer Chemistry articles.

Each month a different member of the Editorial Board will be picking their top articles, so be sure to keep checking the website for the latest additions!

Let us know which Polymer Chemistry articles are your favourite by joining the conversation on Twitter @PolymChem.

The first installment of Editor’s pick comes from Editorial Board member Heather Maynard:


Heather Maynard is a member of the Polymer Chemistry Editorial Board and a Professor in the Department of Chemistry & Biochemistry, UCLA, USA. Heather’s research lies at the frontiers of chemistry, biomaterials, and nanotechnology and involves a combination of organic and polymer synthesis, materials characterization, and biomedical research.


Heather has selected these Polymer Chemistry articles from 2015:

Dual side chain control in the synthesis of novel sequence-defined oligomers through the Ugi four-component reaction
Susanne C. Solleder, Katharina S. Wetzel and Michael A. R. Meier
Polym. Chem., 2015,6, 3201-3204

Degradable cross-linked polymer vesicles for the efficient delivery of platinum drugs
Q. Fu, J. Xu, K. Ladewig, T. M. A. Henderson and G. G. Qiao
Polym. Chem., 2015,6, 35-43

The power of one-pot: a hexa-component system containing π–π stacking, Ugi reaction and RAFT polymerization for simple polymer conjugation on carbon nanotubes
Bin Yang, Yuan Zhao, Xu Ren, Xiaoyong Zhang, Changkui Fu, Yaling Zhang, Yen Wei and Lei Tao
Polym. Chem., 2015,6, 509-513
This article was also highlighted on the Polymer Chemistry blog as Remzi Becer’s Paper of the Week.

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