@article{ZouSchlaad2015, author = {Zou, Hua and Schlaad, Helmut}, title = {Thermoresponsive PNIPAM/Silica Nanoparticles by Direct Photopolymerization in Aqueous Media}, series = {Journal of polymer science : A, Polymer chemistry}, volume = {53}, journal = {Journal of polymer science : A, Polymer chemistry}, number = {10}, publisher = {Wiley-Blackwell}, address = {Hoboken}, issn = {0887-624X}, doi = {10.1002/pola.27593}, pages = {1260 -- 1267}, year = {2015}, abstract = {This article presents a simple and facile method to fabricate thermoresponsive polymer-grafted silica particles by direct surface-initiated photopolymerization of N-isopropylacrylamide (NIPAM). This method is based on silica particles bearing thiol functionalities, which are transformed into thiyl radicals by irradiation with UV light to initiate the polymerization of NIPAM in aqueous media at room temperature. The photopolymerization of NIPAM could be applied to smaller thiol-functionalized particles (approximate to 48 nm) as well as to larger particles (approximate to 692 nm). Hollow poly(NIPAM) capsules could be formed after etching away the silica cores from the composite particles. It is possible to produce tailor-made composite particles or capsules for particular applications by extending this approach to other vinyl monomers. (c) 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Polym Sci Part A: Polym Chem 2015, 53, 1260-1267}, language = {en} } @article{ZhengBaiTaoetal.2018, author = {Zheng, Botuo and Bai, Tianwen and Tao, Xinfeng and Schlaad, Helmut and Ling, Jun}, title = {Identifying the Hydrolysis of Carbonyl Sulfide as a Side Reaction Impeding the Polymerization of N-Substituted Glycine N-Thiocarboxyanhydride}, series = {Biomacromolecules : an interdisciplinary journal focused at the interface of polymer science and the biological sciences}, volume = {19}, journal = {Biomacromolecules : an interdisciplinary journal focused at the interface of polymer science and the biological sciences}, number = {11}, publisher = {American Chemical Society}, address = {Washington}, issn = {1525-7797}, doi = {10.1021/acs.biomac.8b01119}, pages = {4263 -- 4269}, year = {2018}, abstract = {Polypeptoids are noticeable biological materials due to their versatile properties and various applications in drug delivery, surface modification, self-assembly, etc. N-Substituted glycine N-thiocarboxyanhydrides (NNTAs) are more stable monomers than the corresponding N-carboxyanhydrides (NNCAs) and enable one to prepare polypeptoids via ring-opening polymerization even in the presence of water. However, larger amounts of water (>10,000 ppm) cause inhibition of the polymerization. Herein, we discover that during polymerization hydrogen sulfide evolves from the hydrolysis of carbonyl sulfide, which is the byproduct of ring-opening reaction, and reacts with NNTA to produce cyclic oligopeptoids. The capture of N-ethylethanethioic acid as an intermediate product confirms the reaction mechanism together with density functional theory quantum computational results. By bubbling the polymerization solution with argon, the side reaction can be suppressed to allow the synthesis of polysarcosine with high molar mass (M-n = 11,200 g/mol, D = 1.25) even in the presence of similar to 10,000 ppm of water.}, language = {en} } @article{YuantenBrummelhuisJungingeretal.2011, author = {Yuan, Jiayin and ten Brummelhuis, Niels and Junginger, Mathias and Xie, Zailai and Lu, Yan and Taubert, Andreas and Schlaad, Helmut}, title = {Diversified applications of chemically modified 1,2-Polybutadiene}, series = {Macromolecular rapid communications}, volume = {32}, journal = {Macromolecular rapid communications}, number = {15}, publisher = {Wiley-Blackwell}, address = {Malden}, issn = {1022-1336}, doi = {10.1002/marc.201100254}, pages = {1157 -- 1162}, year = {2011}, abstract = {Commercially available 1,2-PB was transformed into a well-defined reactive intermediate by quantitative bromination. The brominated polymer was used as a polyfunctional macroinitiator for the cationic ring-opening polymerization of 2-ethyl-2-oxazoline to yield a water-soluble brush polymer. Nucleophilic substitution of bromide by 1-methyl imidazole resulted in the formation of polyelectrolyte copolymers consisting of mixed units of imidazolium, bromo, and double bond. These copolymers, which were soluble in water without forming aggregates, were used as stabilizers in the heterophase polymerization of styrene and were also studied for their ionic conducting properties.}, language = {en} } @article{WessigSchulzePfennigetal.2017, author = {Wessig, Pablo and Schulze, Tanja and Pfennig, Alexandra and Weidner, Steffen M. and Prentzel, Sascha and Schlaad, Helmut}, title = {Thiol-ene polymerization of oligospiroketal rods}, series = {Polymer Chemistry}, volume = {8}, journal = {Polymer Chemistry}, publisher = {Royal Society of Chemistry}, address = {Cambridge}, issn = {1759-9954}, doi = {10.1039/c7py01569k}, pages = {6879 -- 6885}, year = {2017}, abstract = {The nucleophilic thiol-ene (thia-Michael) reaction between molecular rods bearing terminal thiols and bis-maleimides was investigated. The molecular rods have oligospiroketal (OSK) and oligospirothioketal (OSTK) backbones. Contrary to the expectations, cyclic oligomers were always obtained instead of linear rigid-rod polymers. Replacing the OS(T)K rods with a flexible chain yielded polymeric products, suggesting that the OS(T) K structure is responsible for the formation of cyclic products. The reason for the preferred formation of cyclic products is due to the presence of folded conformations, which have already been described for articulated rods.}, language = {en} } @article{VacogneWeiTaueretal.2018, author = {Vacogne, Charlotte Dominique and Wei, Chunxiang and Tauer, Klaus and Schlaad, Helmut}, title = {Self-assembly of alpha-helical polypeptides into microscopic and enantiomorphic spirals}, series = {Journal of the american chemical society}, volume = {140}, journal = {Journal of the american chemical society}, number = {36}, publisher = {American Chemical Society}, address = {Washington}, issn = {0002-7863}, doi = {10.1021/jacs.8b06503}, pages = {11387 -- 11394}, year = {2018}, abstract = {Helical structures are ubiquitous in biological materials and often serve a structural purpose. Bioinspired helical materials can be challenging to synthesize and rarely reach the degree of hierarchy of their natural counterparts. Here we report the first example of particles synthesized by direct emulsification of polypeptides found to display spiral morphologies in the dry state. The polypeptides were alpha-helical homo- and copolypeptides of gamma-benzyl glutamate and allylglycine. The chirality of the spirals was controlled by the chirality of the alpha-helices. Notably, right-handed alpha-helical polypeptides (rich in 1, residues) produced clockwise spirals, whereas left-handed alpha-helical polypeptides (rich in D residues) produced the enantiomorphs, i.e., counterclockwise spirals. The disruption of the alpha-helical conformation by the introduction of chiral defects led to less regular spirals and in some cases their suppression. A hypothesis for the transmission of helicity and chirality from a molecular to a higher hierarchical level, involving fibril bundling of coiled alpha-helices, is proposed.}, language = {en} } @article{VacogneSchopfererSchlaad2016, author = {Vacogne, Charlotte D. and Schopferer, Michael and Schlaad, Helmut}, title = {Physical Gelation of alpha-Helical Copolypeptides}, series = {Biomacromolecules : an interdisciplinary journal focused at the interface of polymer science and the biological sciences}, volume = {17}, journal = {Biomacromolecules : an interdisciplinary journal focused at the interface of polymer science and the biological sciences}, publisher = {American Chemical Society}, address = {Washington}, issn = {1525-7797}, doi = {10.1021/acs.biomac.6b00427}, pages = {2384 -- 2391}, year = {2016}, abstract = {Owing to its rod-like alpha-helical secondary structure, the synthetic polypeptide poly(gamma-benzyl-L-glutamate) (PBLG) can form physical and thermoreversible gels in helicogenic solvents such as toluene. The versatility of PBLG can be increased by introducing functionalizable comonomers, such as allylglycine (AG). In this work we examined the secondary structure of PBLG and a series of statistical poly(gamma-benzyl-L-glutamate-co-allylglycine) copolypeptides, varying in composition and chain length, by circular dichroism (CD), Fourier-transform infrared (FTIR) and Raman spectroscopy, and wide-angle X-ray scattering (WAXS). The secondary structure of PBLG and the copolypeptides presented dissimilarities that increased with increasing AG molar fraction, especially when racemic AG units were incorporated. The physical gelation behavior of these copolypeptides was analyzed by temperature-sweep H-1 NMR and rheological measurements. The study revealed that both copolypeptide composition and chain length affected secondary structure, gelation temperature, and gel stiffness.}, language = {en} } @article{VacogneSchlaad2015, author = {Vacogne, Charlotte D. and Schlaad, Helmut}, title = {Primary ammonium/tertiary amine-mediated controlled ring opening polymerisation of amino acid N-carboxyanhydrides}, series = {Chemical communications}, volume = {51}, journal = {Chemical communications}, number = {86}, publisher = {Royal Society of Chemistry}, address = {Cambridge}, issn = {1359-7345}, doi = {10.1039/c5cc06905j}, pages = {15645 -- 15648}, year = {2015}, abstract = {Stable commercial primary ammonium chlorides were combined with tertiary amines to initiate the controlled ring opening polymerisation of amino acid N-carboxyanhydrides to yield polypeptides with defined end group structure, predetermined molar mass and narrow molar mass distribution.}, language = {en} } @article{VacogneSchlaad2017, author = {Vacogne, Charlotte D. and Schlaad, Helmut}, title = {Controlled ring-opening polymerization of alpha-amino acid N-carboxyanhydrides in the presence of tertiary amines}, series = {Polymer : the international journal for the science and technology of polymers}, volume = {124}, journal = {Polymer : the international journal for the science and technology of polymers}, publisher = {Elsevier}, address = {Oxford}, issn = {0032-3861}, doi = {10.1016/j.polymer.2017.07.062}, pages = {203 -- 209}, year = {2017}, abstract = {The mechanism of the primary ammonium/tertiary amine-mediated ring-opening polymerization of gamma-benzyl-L-glutamate N-carboxyanhydride (BLG-NCA) was investigated. Kinetic analyses revealed that the normal amine mechanism (NAM) together with a dormant-active chain end equilibrium were responsible for the controlled nature of this polymerization pathway, but that the polymerization also proceeded via the activated monomer mechanism (AMM). Mixtures of primary amines (1 equiv) and tertiary amines (0-1.5 equiv) were therefore tested to confirm the co-existence of the NAM and AMM and determine the limits for a controlled polymerization. For tertiary amine molar fractions smaller than 0.8 equiv, the reaction times were greatly reduced (compared to primary amine-initiated polymerization) without compromising the control of the reaction. Hence, the polymerization of NCA can proceed in a controlled manner even when the AMM contributes to the overall chain growth mechanism. (C) 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.}, language = {en} } @article{VacogneBrosnanMasicetal.2015, author = {Vacogne, Charlotte D. and Brosnan, Sarah M. and Masic, Admir and Schlaad, Helmut}, title = {Fibrillar gels via the self-assembly of poly(L-glutamate)-based statistical copolymers}, series = {Polymer Chemistry}, volume = {6}, journal = {Polymer Chemistry}, number = {28}, publisher = {Royal Society of Chemistry}, address = {Cambridge}, issn = {1759-9954}, doi = {10.1039/c5py00491h}, pages = {5040 -- 5052}, year = {2015}, abstract = {Polypeptides having secondary structures often undergo self-assembly which can extend over multiple length scales. Poly(gamma-benzyl-L-glutamate) (PBLG), for example, folds into a-helices and forms physical organogels, whereas poly(L-glutamic acid) (PLGA at acidic pH) or poly(L-glutamate) (PLG at neutral/basic pH) do not form hydrogels. We explored the gelation of modified PBLG and investigated the deprotection of the carboxylic acid moieties in such gels to yield unique hydrogels. This was accomplished through photo-crosslinking gelation of poly(gamma-benzyl-L-glutamate-co-allylglycine) statistical copolymers in toluene, tetrahydrofuran, and 1,4-dioxane. Unlike most polymer-based chemical gels, our gels were prepared from dilute solutions (<20 g L-1, i.e., <2\% w/v) of low molar mass polymers. Despite such low concentrations and molar masses, our dioxane gels showed high mechanical stability and little shrinkage; remarkably, they also exhibited a porous fibrillar network. Deprotection of the carboxylic acid moieties in dioxane gels yielded pH responsive and highly absorbent PLGA/PLG-based hydrogels (swelling ratio of up to 87), while preserving the network structure, which is an unprecedented feature in the context of crosslinked PLGA gels. These outstanding properties are highly attractive for biomedical materials.}, language = {en} } @article{TritschlerZlotnikovKeckeisetal.2014, author = {Tritschler, Ulrich and Zlotnikov, Igor and Keckeis, Philipp and Schlaad, Helmut and C{\"o}lfen, Helmut}, title = {Optical properties of self-organized gold nanorod-polymer hybrid films}, series = {Langmuir}, volume = {30}, journal = {Langmuir}, number = {46}, publisher = {American Chemical Society}, address = {Washington}, issn = {0743-7463}, doi = {10.1021/la503507u}, pages = {13781 -- 13790}, year = {2014}, abstract = {High fractions of gold nanorods were locally aligned by means of a polymeric liquid crystalline phase. The gold nanorods constituting >80 wt \% of the thin organic-inorganic composite films form a network with side-by-side and end-to-end combinations. Organization into these network structures was induced by shearing gold nanorod-LC polymer dispersions via spin-coating. The LC polymer is a polyoxazoline functionalized with pendent cholesteryl and carboxyl side groups enabling the polymer to bind to the CTAB stabilizer layer of the gold nanorods via electrostatic interactions, thus forming the glue between organic and inorganic components, and to form a chiral nematic lyotropic phase. The self-assembled locally oriented gold nanorod structuring enables control over collective optical properties due to plasmon resonance coupling, reminiscent of enhanced optical properties of natural biomaterials.}, language = {en} }