Elucidating the Role of Interfacial Hydrogen Bonds on Glass Transition Temperature Change in a Poly(Vinyl Alcohol)/SiO Polymer-Nanocomposite by Noncovalent Interaction Characterization and Atomistic Molecular Dynamics Simulations.

A thorough experimental investigation of polymer-glass transition temperature (T ) is performed on poly(vinyl alcohol) (PVA) and fumed silica nanoparticle (SiNP) composite. This is done together with atomistic molecular dynamics simulations of PVA systems in contact with bare and fully hydroxylated silica. Experimentally, PVA-SiNP composites are prepared by simple solution casting from aqueous solutions followed by its characterization using Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), dynamic mechanical analysis (DMA), and dynamic scanning calorimetry (DSC).

Vesicle-Templated Polymerization, a Review.

Vesicle-templated polymerization has developed into a mature research area over the last 35 years. The main purpose of this approach was to produce hollow polymeric nanocapsules from low-cost chemicals, utilizing a simple emulsion-polymerization-like process. Over the years, understanding of the different varieties of the approach has grown.

Morphology Control of Liposome - RAFT Oligomer Precursors to Complex Polymer Nanostructures.

Different types of butyl acrylate (BA)--acrylic acid (AA) oligomers were synthesized via reversible addition-fragmentation chain transfer (RAFT) polymerization and mixed with extruded 200 nm dimethyldioctadecylammonium bromide vesicles. The resulting precursor structures form the basis for subsequent vesicle-templated polymerizations. Systematic variations in temperature, pH, oligomer length, and oligomer composition and their effects on precursor morphology were studied.

Reversible Photo- and Thermoresponsive, Self-Assembling Azobenzene Containing Zwitterionic Polymers.

Commercially available azo dyes bearing amino groups were grafted to zwitterionic copolymers composed of cyclic anhydride functionality. The zwitterionic copolymers were prepared for the first time by polymerizing sulfobetaine (SB) monomer with maleic anhydride (MA) under conventional free radical polymerization as well as reversible addition-fragmentation chain transfer (RAFT) polymerization. Poly(SB- co-MA) self-assembled in deionized water.