Cyclodextrin-Tunable Reversible Self-Assembly of Thermoresponsive Y-shaped Polymer

HaoYao^a, Wei Tian^a*, YuezhouLiu^a, Yang Bai^b,DizhengLiu^a, TingtingLiu^a,Miao Qi^a, Min Wang^a, YuyangLiu^a

Tuning the reversible self-assembly process of stimuli-responsive topological polymers in solution has theoretical and practical significance. In this study, wecovalently incorporatedβ-cyclodextrin (β-CD) onto the thermoresponsive Y-shaped polymer toinvestigate the influenceof β-CD on the morphology,size and reversibility of self-assemblies. Transmission electron microscopy,atomic force microscopy,anddynamiclight scattering results indicated that the morphology and sizeof polymer self-assemblies present a good reversibilityduring the whole heating-cooling process.The self-assembly morphology gradually changed from dot-like micelles to noticeable core-corona-structured micelles, and finally back to dot-like micelles again. Meantime, the size of self-assemblies first increased from several tens of nanometers to hundreds of nanometers, and then decreased to get close to the initial value. The attachedβ-CD units have a pronouncedregulation effect on thereversible self-assembly process. Thecorresponding mechanismis attributed to theabilities ofβ-CD itself toconduct inclusioncomplexation, induce intermolecular hydrogen bonding interaction and present steric hinerance. Our study has expanded a new idea to reversiblytune the morphology and size ofstimulus-responsive topological polymerself-assemblies.

全文链接：http://pubs.rsc.org/en/content/articlelanding/2014/RA/C5RA03064A#!divAbstract