Recently, there has been growing interest in the synthesis of nonlinear copolymers with well-defined structures and macromolecular architectures, including miktoarm star, dendritic and macrocyclic copolymers.
In their paper, En-Tang Kang and co-workers reported an efficient method for the design of jellyfish-shaped amphiphilic block-graft copolymers consisting of a poly(3-caprolactone)-block-poly(pentafluorostyrene) ring of controllable dimension and poly(ethylene glycol) lateral brushes. This was achieved by a combination of of ring-opening polymerization (ROP), atom transfer radical polymerization (ATRP), alkyne-azide and thiol-para-fluorine click reactions.
This approach appeared here to be extremely robust for the preparation of a broad range of cyclic block copolymers with tailored ring morphology and functionalities.
Preparation of jellyfish-shaped amphiphilic block-graft copolymers consisting of a poly(3-caprolactone)-block-poly(pentafluorostyrene) ring and poly(ethylene glycol) lateral brushes by Tao Cai, Wen Jing Yang, Koon-Gee Neoh and En-Tang Kang Polym. Chem. 2012, 3, 1061-1068.
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