Multitunable Thermoresponsive and Aggregation Behaviors of Linear and Cyclic Polyacrylamide Copolymers Comprising Heterofunctional Y Junctions

Biodegradable Nanobowls with Controlled Dents

Nanobowls show promising potential in biomedical applications, such as bioimaging, cargo delivery, and disease theranostics, due to their unique concave structure and interior cavities. However, the lack of biodegradable nanobowls with manipulable size (especially the dent size) still exists as an obstacle for their in-depth exploration and application in biomedical fields. Herein, polypeptide-based nanobowls are successfully obtained by the self-assembly of a graft polypeptide [named TPE-P(GAAzo21-stat-GA29)] via a solvent-switch method. Through the synergistic effect between the hydrogen bonding and π-π stacking interactions, the size of nanobowls and the corresponding dents can be facilely controlled by altering either the initial polypeptide concentration or the cosolvents in self-assembly. Furthermore, such polypeptide-based nanobowls are demonstrated to be biocompatible and biodegradable in vitro, which may promote the development of biomedical nanobowls in the future.

Dual Thermo-Responsive and Strain-Responsive Ionogels for Smart Windows and Temperature/Motion Monitoring

In this work, a stretchable, dual thermo-responsive and strain-responsive ionogel has been synthesized by one-step photopolymerization. The obtained ionogel shows an ultrahigh stretchability (∼3000%), a high ionic conductivity (up to 3.1 mS/cm), and a good temperature tolerance (-40 to 300 °C). Importantly, these ionogels show an upper critical solution temperature-type phase transition with a wide tunable phase-transition temperature (17.5-42.5 °C) and reversible color/transparency switching. In particular, the as-prepared ionogel-based flexible/wearable temperature monitors and smart windows show an excellent designability and programmability, temperature modulation ability, and thermal responsiveness. Moreover, the ionogels-based strain sensors have temperature- and strain-dual responsibility and a broad strain-sensing range (1-700%), which can effectively monitor various motions. This strategy of fabricating dual thermo- and strain-responsive ionogels by using a one-step method and only one polymer holds great promise for the next generation of multifunctional stimuli-responsive materials.

Facile synthesis of monocyclic, dumbbell-shaped and jellyfish-like copolymers using a telechelic multisite hexablock copolymer

A heterofunctional hexablock copolymer comprising alternating reactive and non-reactive blocks is designed to generate cyclic, dumbbell-shaped and jellyfish-like copolymers.

Recent advances in the self-assembly of sparsely grafted amphiphilic copolymers in aqueous solution

This review describes the self-assembly of sparsely grafted amphiphilic copolymers and highlights the effects of structural factors and solvents on their self-assembly behaviour.

Multi-tunable aggregation behaviors of thermo/pH-responsive toothbrush-like and jellyfish-like copolymers

Rational design of comb-like and linear conjugates comprising PNIPAM and PDMAEMA segments allows the construction of a multi-tunable hierarchical self-assembly platform and insight into the topology effect.

Rational design of a multi-in-one heterofunctional agent for versatile topological transformation of multisite multisegmented polystyrenes

A “seven-in-one” initiating, coupling and stimuli-labile agent is designed to achieve topological transformations with reduced, similar and enhanced molar masses.

Topology-directed multi-tunable self-assembly of linear and tadpole-shaped amorphous-responsive-crystalline terpolymers

Rational design of ABC linear terpolymer and (c-AB)C tadpole-shaped terpolymer allows the construction of a topology-directed crystallization/thermo/pH-tunable hierarchical self-assembly platform.