Over the past two decades, nano-sized biosystems have increasingly been utilized to deliver various pharmaceutical agents to a specific region, organ or tissue for controllable precision therapy. Whether solid nanohydrogel, nanosphere, nanoparticle, nanosheet, micelles and lipoproteins, or “hollow” nanobubble, liposome, nanocapsule, and nanovesicle, all of them can exhibit outstanding loading and releasing capability as a drug vehicle – in particular polymeric nanovesicle, a microscopic hollow sphere that encloses a water core with a thin polymer membrane. Besides excellent stability, toughness and liposome-like compatibility, polymeric nanovesicles offer considerable scope for tailoring properties by changing their chemical structure, block lengths, stimulus-responsiveness and even conjugation with biomolecules. In this review, we summarize the latest advances in stimulus-responsive polymeric nanovesicles for biomedical applications. Different functionalized polymers are in development to construct more complex multiple responsive nanovesicles in delivery systems, medical imaging, biosensors and so on.
Chlorination and
selenophene were used to develop benzothiadiazole-based polymers for
high-performance polymer solar cells (PSCs). The introduction of selenophene
can increase crystallinity due to the metalloid nature of selenium
and thus facilitate charge transport. Chlorination can tune the energy
levels and induce strong aggregation due to its unique features. A
non-chlorinated polymer with selenophene, PBT3TSe, shows a highly
crystalline structure and a dominant face-on orientation, consequently
attaining a high short-circuit current (J
SC). Chlorinated PBT3TClSe displays synergy between the advantages
of chlorination and selenophene to achieve elevated photovoltaic performance,
with a power conversion efficiency (PCE) approaching 9.89% in PC71BM-based devices. Interestingly, chlorination has an important
influence on morphology of the polymer and polymer blend films, resulting
in a severe aggregation and mixed face-on and edge-on orientation
in the blend film. But the sufficient intermingling of donor and acceptor
and the closer distances between molecules from the introduction of
the chlorine and selenophene offset their morphological inferiority
to achieve higher solar conversion.
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