We report programmed self-assembly systems of amphiphilic random copolymers bearing hydrophilic poly(ethylene glycol) (PEG) and hydrophobic alkyl pendants into size-controlled and thermoresponsive micelles in water. This system affords simultaneous and precise control of the size, aggregation numbers, and cloud point (Cp) of micelles in water by primary structure (pendant alkyl groups, composition, and chain length) that is programmed in the copolymers. Typically, random copolymers bearing PEG and alkyl pendants (butyl, octyl, dodecyl, and octadecyl groups) universally induce intermolecular self-assembly in water to produce uniform size micelles (<10 nm). The size is just determined by the content and alkyl pendant length of the hydrophobic monomers, independent of main chain length (below critical length for self-folding): The size increased with increasing the content and the pendant length. Design of hydrophobic alkyl groups with tuning composition allow us to widely control the size (molecular weight: 20K−1350K) and cloud point (from 45 to 85 °C) of the polymer micelles. We can thus tailor-make various micelles with identical size yet different Cp or those with identical Cp yet different size. Thanks to such dual controllability, selfsorting and stepwise thermoresponsive micelle systems were also created with blends of different copolymers; binary copolymers induced orthogonal self-assembly in water to provide discrete micelles with different size and cloud point.

We report amphiphilic folded polymers with imprinted nanocavities for selective molecular recognition in water. For this, a molecular imprinting technique is applied to the polymer synthesis: amphiphilic polymer micelles interacting with template molecules are crosslinked in water to fix the folded architecture and memorize the template structure within the polymers; the removal of the templates provides imprint polymers bearing template‐specific nanospaces. Here, a hydrophilic dye bearing two anionic groups, Orange G (OG), is used as a model template. For the imprinting, we design amphiphilic random copolymers bearing hydrophilic poly(ethylene glycol) (PEG) chains, hydrophobic olefin groups, and quaternary ammonium groups that can interact with the template. The copolymers were prepared by living radical polymerization and post functionalization. In the presence of OG and methyl blue (MB), the imprinted nanocavity polymers simultaneously capture both of the dyes in water. The total number of encapsulated dyes increased with increasing the number of polymer‐bound quaternary ammonium groups. The selectivity of OG against MB increased with the crosslinking density, while imprint polymers encapsulated OG more efficiently than nonimprint polymers. © 2020 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Polym. Sci. 2020, 58, 215–224