Thermally-induced hyperbranching of bromine-containing polyesters by insertion of in situ generated chain-end carbenes

Panagiotis Bexis; Maria C Arno; Craig A Bell; Anthony W Thomas; Andrew P Dove

doi:10.1039/d1cc00821h

Thermally-induced hyperbranching of bromine-containing polyesters by insertion of in situ generated chain-end carbenes

Chem Commun (Camb). 2021 Apr 29;57(35):4275-4278. doi: 10.1039/d1cc00821h.

Authors

Panagiotis Bexis¹, Maria C Arno², Craig A Bell³, Anthony W Thomas⁴, Andrew P Dove⁵

Affiliations

¹ Department of Chemistry, University of Warwick, Gibbet Hill Road, Coventry, CV4 7AL, UK and School of Chemistry, University of Birmingham, Edgbaston, Birmingham, B15 2TT, UK. A.Dove@bham.ac.uk.
² School of Chemistry, University of Birmingham, Edgbaston, Birmingham, B15 2TT, UK. A.Dove@bham.ac.uk and Institute of Cancer and Genomic Science, University of Birmingham, Edgbaston, Birmingham, B15 2TT, UK.
³ Department of Chemistry, University of Warwick, Gibbet Hill Road, Coventry, CV4 7AL, UK and Centre for Advanced Imaging, The University of Queensland, Brisbane, QLD 4072, Australia and Australian Institute for Bioengineering and Nanotechnology, The University of Queensland, Brisbane, QLD 4072, Australia.
⁴ Department of Chemistry, University of Warwick, Gibbet Hill Road, Coventry, CV4 7AL, UK.
⁵ School of Chemistry, University of Birmingham, Edgbaston, Birmingham, B15 2TT, UK. A.Dove@bham.ac.uk.

PMID: 33913987
DOI: 10.1039/d1cc00821h

Abstract

Hyperbranched, biodegradable PCL-based polymers are obtained through a random but invasive migration of an in situ generated carbene end group which is unmasked via the thermolysis of its precursor diazirine moiety. These hyperbranched cores are used as macroinitiators for 'grafting-from' polymerisation using controlled radical polymerisation to achieve amphiphilic copolymers which can subsequently be self-assembled into spherical core-shell micelles.