Doubly thermo-responsive copolymers in ionic liquid

Soft Matter. 2016 Apr 7;12(13):3246-51. doi: 10.1039/c5sm03063c. Epub 2016 Mar 2.

Abstract

We report the behaviour of thermoresponsive block copolymers of n-butyl acrylate and N-alkyl acrylamides in [C2mim][NTf2]. Poly(N-isopropylacrylamide) exhibits an upper critical solution temperature in [C2mim][NTf2] whereas poly(n-butyl acrylate) has a lower critical solution temperature. Consequently, these polymers exhibit double thermo-responsiveness correlated with the macromolecular structure. Moreover, a switching from micellar to reverse micellar structures was induced by a change in temperature. This property enables the development of reversible shuttles between ionic liquids and water.