Polymer Chemistry Blog

Scientists in the UK have discovered that a one-penny coin can catalyse polymerisations. The penny not only made the reaction start faster than the commonly used copper wire catalyst, but could also produce up to 50g of polymer in one batch.

Source: Royal Society of Chemistry

Single electron transfer living radical polymerisation is one of the most used reactions to produce everyday polymers such as polystyrene and acrylics. Polymerisation reactions need a catalyst to get them started – copper wire being the most common one. However, pure copper’s high cost can be restrictive.

To read the full article visit Chemistry World.

Scientists in Germany have successfully collapsed single polymer chains into dense nanoparticles, to make single-chain nanoparticles, by adding palladium.¹ The nanoparticles mimic enzymatic pockets with defined environments around their metal centres and can catalyse a carbon coupling reaction.

The intramolecular crosslinking process creates single-chain nanoparticles that catalyse a Sonogashira coupling reaction

Enzymes use their carefully shaped reaction cavities to selectively catalyse organic reactions. Industrial processes crave selectivity, but also demand straightforward procedures. Synthesising and separating enzymes in practical quantities is, however, tricky, so they aren’t always suitable for industry. One solution to this might be single-chain nanoparticles, which have recently become a hot topic in the field of polymer chemistry.² Their applications range from sensing to recognition, and medicine to catalysis, but only a few groups have studied their synthesis and even fewer have looked at the introduction of metals.

To read the full article visit Chemistry World.

Pd-complex driven formation of single-chain nanoparticles
Johannes Willenbacher, Ozcan Altintas, Vanessa Trouillet, Nicolai Knöfel, Michael J. Monteiro, Peter W. Roesky and Christopher Barner-Kowollik
Polym. Chem., 2015, Advance Article
DOI: 10.1039/C5PY00389J, Paper