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Updated: Jul 10, 2025

Microfluidic Preparation of Liquid Crystalline Elastomer Actuators
Published on: May 20, 2018
Catalyst switch strategy enabled a single polymer with five different crystalline phases
Pengfei Zhang1, Viko Ladelta1, Edy Abou-Hamad2
1Polymer Synthesis Laboratory, KAUST Catalysis Center, Chemistry Program, Physical Sciences and Engineering Division, King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST), Thuwal, 23955, Saudi Arabia.
Abstract:
Well-defined multicrystalline multiblock polymers are essential model polymers for advancing crystallization physics, phase separation, self-assembly, and improving the mechanical properties of materials. However, due to different chain properties and incompatible synthetic methodologies, multicrystalline multiblock polymers with more than two crystallites are rarely reported. Herein, by combining polyhomologation, ring-opening polymerization, and catalyst switch strategy, we synthesized a pentacrystalline pentablock quintopolymer, polyethylene-b-poly(ethylene oxide)-b-poly(ε-caprolactone)-b-poly(L-lactide)-b-polyglycolide (PE-b-PEO-b-PCL-b-PLLA-b-PGA). The fluoroalcohol-assisted catalyst switch enables the successful incorporation of a high melting point polyglycolide block into the complex multiblock structure. Solid-state nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy, X-ray diffraction, and differential scanning calorimetry revealed the existence of five different crystalline phases.
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