Exploiting nucleobase-containing materials - from monomers to complex morphologies using RAFT dispersion polymerization

Yan Kang, Anais Pitto-Barry, Helen Willcock, Wen-Dong Quan, Nigel Kirby, Ana M. Sanchez, Rachel K. O'Reilly

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

59 Citations (Scopus)
116 Downloads (Pure)

Abstract

The synthesis of nucleobase-containing polymers was successfully performed by RAFT dispersion polymerization in both chloroform and 1,4-dioxane and self-assembly was induced by the polymerizations. A combination of scattering and microscopy techniques were used to characterize the morphologies. It is found that the morphologies of self-assembled nucleobase-containing polymers are solvent dependent. By varying the DP of the core-forming block, only spherical micelles with internal structures were obtained in chloroform when using only adenine-containing methacrylate or a mixture of adenine-containing methacrylate and thymine-containing methacrylate as monomers. However, higher order structures and morphology transitions were observed in 1,4-dioxane. A sphere-rod-lamella-twisted bilayer transition was observed in this study. Moreover, the kinetics of the dispersion polymerizations were studied in both solvents, suggesting a different formation mechanism in these systems.
Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)106-117
Number of pages12
JournalPolymer Chemistry
Volume6
Early online date11 Sept 2014
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 7 Jan 2015

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