Switchable Electrostatically Templated Polymerization.

Angew Chem Int Ed Engl

Institute for Complex Molecular Systems, Department of Chemical Engineering and Chemistry, Eindhoven University of Technology, P.O. Box 513, 5600 MB, Eindhoven, The Netherlands.

Published: September 2022

We report a switchable, templated polymerization system where the strength of the templating effect can be modulated by solution pH and/or ionic strength. The responsiveness to these cues is incorporated through a dendritic polyamidoamine-based template of which the charge density depends on pH. The dendrimers act as a template for the polymerization of an oppositely charged monomer, namely sodium styrene sulfonate. We show that the rate of polymerization and maximum achievable monomer conversion are directly related to the charge density of the template, and hence the environmental pH. The polymerization could effectively be switched "ON" and "OFF" on demand, by cycling between acidic and alkaline reaction environments. These findings break ground for a novel concept, namely harnessing co-assembly of a template and growing polymer chains with tunable association strength to create and control coupled polymerization and self-assembly pathways of (charged) macromolecular building blocks.

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http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9796233PMC
http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/anie.202206780DOI Listing

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