Thermo‐Switchable Materials Prepared Using the OEGMA‐Platform

Abstract

We describe here the advantages of oligo(ethylene glycol)‐based (co)polymers for preparing thermoresponsive materials as diverse as polymer‐enzyme bio‐hybrids, injectable hydrogels, capsules for drug‐release, modified magnetic particles for in vivo utilization, cell‐culture substrates, antibacterial surfaces, or stationary phases for bioseparation. Oligo(ethylene glycol) methacrylates (OEGMAs) can be (co)polymerized using versatile and widely‐applicable methods of polymerization such as atom transfer radical polymerization (ATRP) of reversible addition‐fragmentation chain‐transfer (RAFT) polymerization. Thus, the molecular structure and therefore the stimuli‐responsive properties of these polymers can be precisely controlled. Moreover, these stimuli‐responsive macromolecules can be easily attached to–or directly grown from–organic, inorganic or biological materials. As a consequence, the OEGMA synthetic platform is today a popular option for materials design. The present research news summaries the progress of the last two years.

Synthesis of Poly(methyl methacrylate)-poly(poly(ethylene glycol) methacrylate)-polyisobutylene ABCBA Pentablock Copolymers by Combining Quasiliving Carbocationic and Atom Transfer Radical Polymerizations and Characterization Thereof

“…properties, it is of special importance that both polymers possess non-immunogeneity and bioand blood compatibility (6)(7)(8)(9)(10)(11)(12)(13)(14)(15)(16)(17). For all these reasons, it is expected that the integration of these two types of polymer segments into one macromolecule may lead to a variety of new application possibilities.…”

Stimuli‐responsive polypeptide materials prepared by ring‐opening polymerization of α‐amino acid N‐carboxyanhydrides

“…Two extensively studied thermo-responsive polymers are poly(N-isopropyl acryl amide) [35][36][37][38] and poly(oligo(ethylene glycol) methacrylate) (POEGMA). 39,40 From the thermodynamic consideration, the thermo-responsive property is due to a delicate amphiphilic balance between different subunits within polymer chains, which contains hydrophobic and hydrophilic moieties. For LCST-type thermo-responsive polymers, the hydrophilic units tend to form hydrogen bonding with water molecules, which undergo dehydration upon temperature increase.…”

Living Radical Polymerization by the RAFT Process – A Third Update

“…[62] The process is also given substantial coverage in most recent reviews that, in part, relate to polymer synthesis, living or controlled polymerization or novel architectures. Some of those that include significant mention of RAFT polymerization include reviews on RDRP, [63] mechanism and reagent design, [11,64,65] click chemistry, [66][67][68][69][70][71][72] synthesis of telechelics, [73] the polymerization of carbazole-containing monomers, [74] N-vinyl-1,2,3-triazoles, [75] N-vinyl heterocycles, [76] fluoro-monomers, [77] and glycomonomers, [78][79][80] synthesis of metallopolymers, [81] conjugated block copolymers, [82] dye-functionalized polymers, [83] stimuliresponsive polymers, [84,85] complex architectures, [86,87] polyolefin blocks, [88] biopolymer-polymer conjugates and bioapplications, [59,[89][90][91][92][93] polysaccharide modification, [94,95] polymerization in heterogeneous media, [96,97] microwave-assisted polymerization, [65,98,99] industrial prospects for RDRP, [100,…”