Abstract
A series of well-defined amphiphilic polymethylene-b-poly(ethylene glycol) (PM-b-PEG) diblock copolymers, with different hydrophobic chain length, were synthesized by combining Diels-Alder reaction with polyhomologation. The successful synthetic procedure was confirmed by size-exclusion chromatography (SEC) and 1H NMR spectroscopy. These block copolymers self-assembled into spherical micelles in aqueous solutions and exhibit low critical micelle concentration (CMC) of 2–4 mg/mL, as determined by fluorescence spectroscopy using pyrene as a probe. Measurements of the micelle hydrodynamic diameters, performed by dynamic light scattering (DLS), cryo-transmission electron microscopy (cryo-TEM) and atomic force microscopy (AFM), revealed a direct dependence of the micelle size from the polymethylene block length.
| Original language | English (US) |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 415-421 |
| Number of pages | 7 |
| Journal | Polymer |
| Volume | 107 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - Sep 22 2016 |
Bibliographical note
KAUST Repository Item: Exported on 2020-10-01Acknowledgements: Research reported in this publication supported by King Abdullah University of Science and Technology. The assistance of Dr Rachid Sougrat, KAUST Advanced Nanofabrication Imaging and Characterization Core Laboratory, in cryo-TEM experiments is gratefully acknowledged.