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Direct Synthesis of Polymer Vesicles on the Hundred-Nanometer-and-Beyond Scale Using Chemical Oscillations
Bishnu Prasad Bastakoti1, Sudhina Guragain1, Juan Perez-Mercader1,2
1Department Earth and Planetary Sciences and Origin of Life Initiative, Harvard University, 20 Oxford Street, Cambridge, 02138, Massachusetts, USA.
Abstract:
The direct synthesis of block copolymer vesicles on the scale of tens to hundreds of nanometers using reversible addition-fragmentation chain transfer (RAFT) dispersion polymerization as an effect of chemical oscillations is reported. RAFT polymerization is successfully accomplished between polyethylene glycol containing a RAFT agent (PEG-CTA) and ethyl acrylate monomer in the presence of the Belousov-Zhabotinsky (B-Z) reaction in oscillatory mode. The self-assembly of poly(ethylene glycol)-b-poly(ethyl acrylate) unimers gives rise to spherical micelles. The self-assembled micelles reorganize and transform to vesicles. All the chemistry of polymerization, self-assembly and self-organization, of macromolecules takes place in a single pot using only a few simple raw materials in aqueous solution.
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