Tailored design of reactive polymers and nanostructures

Prof. Dr. Johannes Brendel, Universität Bayreuth

Nature presents numerous examples for responsive structures, which react to subtle changes in their environment. In our group, various functional monomers and polymers are synthesized which react selectively to specific stimuli such as an oxidative environment or changes in pH. In the latter case, we realized amino-based polymers, which are selectively protonated in the biological most interesting range of pH 5-8. In another example, we utilize thioether groups to trigger a time-delayed release and degradation under oxidative conditions.

Another focus of our research is the controlled assembly of these functional polymers into nanostructures of specific shapes. Therefore, we investigate approaches such as poly­meri­zation in­duced self-assembly (PISA) or directed supramolecular interactions to guide the assembly of the functional polymer building blocks into different nanostructures. In the latter case, directing hydrogen bonds are employed to drive the assembly of funcionalized polymers into supramolecular bottlebrush-like fibres. The assembly follows a nucleation-growth mechanism which allows to tune the length of the fibers.