Fundamental molecular design for precise control of thermoresponsiveness of organic polymers by using ternary systems

Shogo Amemori; Kenta Kokado; Kazuki Sada

doi:10.1021/ja301688u

Fundamental molecular design for precise control of thermoresponsiveness of organic polymers by using ternary systems

J Am Chem Soc. 2012 May 23;134(20):8344-7. doi: 10.1021/ja301688u. Epub 2012 May 11.

Authors

Shogo Amemori¹, Kenta Kokado, Kazuki Sada

Affiliation

¹ Department of Chemical Sciences and Engineering, Graduate School of Chemical Sciences and Engineering, Hokkaido University, Kita-ku, Sapporo, Japan.

PMID: 22540357
DOI: 10.1021/ja301688u

Abstract

The de novo design of thermosensitive polymers in solution has been achieved by using the addition of small organic molecules (or "effectors"). Hydrogen bonding as an attractive polymer-polymer or polymer-effector interaction substantially dominates the responsivity, causing facile switching between LCST-type and UCST-type phase transitions, control of the transition temperature, and further coincidence of the two transitions. Small molecules having a high affinity for the polymer induce UCST-type phase behavior, whereas those having a low affinity for the polymer showed LCST-type phase behavior.