Poly(ethylene glycol) brush- b-poly(N-vinylpyrrolidone)-based double hydrophilic block copolymer particles crosslinked via crystalline α-cyclodextrin domains

Noah Al Nakeeb; Zdravko Kochovski; Tingting Li; Youjia Zhang; Yan Lu; Bernhard V K J Schmidt

doi:10.1039/c8ra10672j

Poly(ethylene glycol) brush- b-poly(N-vinylpyrrolidone)-based double hydrophilic block copolymer particles crosslinked via crystalline α-cyclodextrin domains

RSC Adv. 2019 Feb 8;9(9):4993-5001. doi: 10.1039/c8ra10672j. eCollection 2019 Feb 5.

Authors

Noah Al Nakeeb¹, Zdravko Kochovski², Tingting Li^{1

3}, Youjia Zhang¹, Yan Lu^{2

4}, Bernhard V K J Schmidt¹

Affiliations

¹ Max-Planck Institute of Colloids and Interfaces, Department of Colloid Chemistry Am Mühlenberg 1 14476 Potsdam Germany bernhard.schmidt@mpikg.mpg.de.
² Soft Matter and Functional Materials, Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin für Materialien und Energie 14109 Berlin Germany.
³ State Key Laboratory of Fine Chemicals, Department of Polymer Science and Engineering, Dalian University of Technology Dalian 116024 China.
⁴ Institute of Chemistry, University of Potsdam 14476 Potsdam Germany.

Abstract

Self-assembly of block copolymers is a significant area of polymer science. The self-assembly of completely water-soluble block copolymers is of particular interest, albeit a challenging task. In the present work the self-assembly of a linear-brush architecture block copolymer, namely poly(N-vinylpyrrolidone)-b-poly(oligoethylene glycol methacrylate) (PVP-b-POEGMA), in water is studied. Moreover, the assembled structures are crosslinked via α-CD host/guest complexation in a supramolecular way. The crosslinking shifts the equilibrium toward aggregate formation without switching off the dynamic equilibrium of double hydrophilic block copolymer (DHBC). As a consequence, the self-assembly efficiency is improved without extinguishing the unique DHBC self-assembly behavior. In addition, decrosslinking could be induced without a change in concentration by adding a competing complexation agent for α-CD. The self-assembly behavior was followed by DLS measurement, while the presence of the particles could be observed via cryo-TEM before and after crosslinking.