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Full-Text Articles in Polymer Chemistry
Stimuli-Responsive Polyelectrolytes: Thermosensitive Zwitterionic Polymers And Charged Shape-Changing Star Molecular Bottlebrushes, Evan M. Lewoczko
Stimuli-Responsive Polyelectrolytes: Thermosensitive Zwitterionic Polymers And Charged Shape-Changing Star Molecular Bottlebrushes, Evan M. Lewoczko
Doctoral Dissertations
This dissertation work investigated two classes of stimuli-responsive polyelectrolytes: thermosensitive zwitterionic poly(sulfobetaine methacrylate)s (PSBMAs) and charged shape-changing star molecular bottlebrushes (SMBs). While zwitterionic polymers are explored for numerous applications, their structure-solution behavior relationship was poorly understood. The first part of this dissertation focused on the effects of N-substituents of PSBMAs on their behavior in water. A series of PSBMAs were synthesized, with systematically changed N-substituents, including symmetric N-n-alkyl substituents of various lengths and asymmetric N-substituents comprising one methyl and either one cyclohexyl, phenyl or 2-hydroxyethyl group. The behavior of PSBMAs with symmetric N-substituents …
Designing Stimuli-Responsive Nanocomposites To Investigate Interface Dynamics, Huyen Vu
Designing Stimuli-Responsive Nanocomposites To Investigate Interface Dynamics, Huyen Vu
Doctoral Dissertations
Inspired by nature, this research focuses on designing multifunctional renewable nanocomposites with high toughness and stimuli-responsiveness. In recent years, cellulose nanocrystals (CNCs) have been explored due to their abundance, renewable resource, and unique mechanical strength and structural coloration. CNCs naturally self-assemble into the helicoidal (Bouligand) structure that effectively endure high impacts but is brittle without an attendant soft phase. A thermoresponsive polymer, poly(diethylene glycol methyl ether methacrylate) (PMEO2MA), was incorporated into CNCs via evaporation-induced self-assembly to improve toughness of the resulting nanocomposites and to study responses in polymer dynamics under varying temperature and humidity conditions. To study microscopic …
Dually Responsive Shape-Changing Linear And Star Molecular Bottlebrushes With Bicomponent Side Chains, Ethan Wesley Kent
Dually Responsive Shape-Changing Linear And Star Molecular Bottlebrushes With Bicomponent Side Chains, Ethan Wesley Kent
Doctoral Dissertations
Molecular bottlebrushes (MBBs) can exhibit large conformational changes from wormlike to globular in solution in response to environmental stimuli. However, the instability of the collapsed state has prevented shape-changing MBBs from potential applications in, e.g., biomimetic catalysis and substance delivery. This dissertation work focused on dually responsive linear and star MBBs composed of bicomponent side chains in the form of either homografted diblock copolymer or binary heterografted polymeric side chains. When one polymer component collapsed, driving the shape changing of MBBs, another component served as a stabilizer. When both components in the side chains were stimuli-responsive, an additional level of …
Modulating Nanoparticle-Protein Interactions Through Covalent Or Noncovalent Approach For Biomedical Applications, Jingjing Gao
Modulating Nanoparticle-Protein Interactions Through Covalent Or Noncovalent Approach For Biomedical Applications, Jingjing Gao
Doctoral Dissertations
Discoveries at the interface of chemistry, biology, and materials science have emerged as a powerful route to impact life science in this century. My research in the Thayumanavan group is focused on problems at this interface. A common theme of all the six projects is the use of modern synthetic organic chemistry to build interesting, novel macromolecules which are chemically rich, to study the molecular self-assembly behavior in solution and then translate to solve problems in the biomedical area. By addressing the design challenge to prepare novel amphiphiles with desired functional groups, controlled molecular weight and the ability to respond …
Design And Synthesis Of Stimuli-Responsive Polymeric Nanogels Towards Therapeutic Translation, Mallory R. Gordon
Design And Synthesis Of Stimuli-Responsive Polymeric Nanogels Towards Therapeutic Translation, Mallory R. Gordon
Doctoral Dissertations
In the application of delivery of therapeutics, nanostructures of various composition have been employed due to their capacity to act as a host for lipophilic payloads. Advances in the synthetic preparation, size, morphology, and chemical or physical characteristics of polymers have impacted their development and versatility. A detailed understanding of polymeric nanoparticle host-guest properties is crucial to their practical translation to specific delivery applications. Further, these features must be highly tailorable to overcome biological barriers, stably encapsulate their therapeutic contexts, and exhibit payload release selectively in the target environment. In this dissertation, we aim to rationally design polymeric nano-scale assemblies …