Stimulus-Sensitive Self-Assembling Polymers
Abstract
Assemblies that sequester guest molecules based on its solubility are of immense interest to carry out extraction as well as reactions particularly when molecules have distinct solubility profiles. The U.S. Army has an interest in this area due to the possibility of using the assemblies to decontaminate and destruct the chemical warfare (CW) agents. Amphiphilic polymer based assemblies that differentially sequester guest molecules are potential candidates towards neutralizing the CW agents. It is also important to modify these assemblies in such a way to disassemble in response to stimuli. Such assemblies are useful in areas such as targeted delivery in addition to neutralizing the CW agents. Towards this goal, we synthesized polymers that could form stable assemblies in heterogeneous solvent mixtures. These assemblies exhibit nanocontainer properties by extracting molecules from both aqueous and organic solvents. We also demonstrated that the disassembly of these nanocontainers could be triggered by chemical and biological stimuli. Certain environments have more than one stimulus, which could be considered as a marker for a specific disease. For targeted delivery in such environments, the nanocontainer should poses functionalities that respond to multiple stimuli. Towards this goal, we synthesized block copolymers that respond to pH, redox and temperature. Thus the key features of this report are (1) Synthesis of homopolymers that could form both micelle and reverse micelle type assemblies depending on the nature of the solvent; (2) Investigation on the nanocontainer property of these assemblies and dye extraction studies to probe the stability of them in heterogeneous solvent mixtures; (3) Disassembly of organized assembly triggered by redox stimulus; (4) Disassembly of the nanocontainers using pH, redox and temperature.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Aug 11, 2009
- Accession Number
- ADA509686
Entities
People
- Sankaran Thayumanavan
Organizations
- University of Massachusetts Amherst