Supramolecular Self‐Assembly of Nonlinear Amphiphilic and Double Hydrophilic Block Copolymers in Aqueous Solutions

Abstract

Supramolecular self-assembly of block copolymers in aqueous solution has received ever-increasing interest over the past few decades due to diverse biological and technological applications in drug delivery, imaging, sensing and catalysis. In addition to relative block lengths, molecular weights and solution conditions, chain architectures of block copolymers can also dramatically affect their self-assembling properties in selective solvents. This feature article mainly focuses on recent developments in the field of supramolecular self-assembly of amphiphilic and double hydrophilic block copolymers (DHBCs) possessing nonlinear chain topologies, including miktoarm star polymers, dendritic-linear block copolymers, cyclic block copolymers and comb-shaped copolymer brushes.

Self‐assembling Linear and Star Shaped Poly(ϵ‐caprolactone)/poly[(meth)acrylic acid] Block Copolymers as Carriers of Indomethacin and Quercetin

“…In recent years, the development of amphiphilic copolymers that self‐assemble in aqueous solution has attracted much attention due to the wide range of potential applications, especially as carriers in drug delivery systems (DDS). They form micelles with core–shell nanostructures, which after loading with poorly water soluble drugs, can be introduced into the human body and delivered to specific organ or target site, where the drug is expected to be released in a controlled manner.…”

Amphiphilic dendronized homopolymers

“…They have been explored for many applications in material science and biomedicine areas [1][2][3][4]. Among them, amphiphilic block copolymers with either linear [5][6][7] or nonlinear (comb or star-shaped and dendritic) [8,9] architectures have been intensively studied due to their abilities to self-assemble into versatile superstructures in solution, in bulk or on interface. These polymers were conventionally synthesized via living (controlled) polymerization techniques, such as ionic polymerization, reversible addition-fragmentation chain transfer (RAFT) polymerization or atom transfer radical polymerization (ATRP), and therefore, strict experimental conditions are required.…”

Effect of the Branching Pattern of Hydrophobic Dendrons on the Core Structure of Linear‐Dendritic Copolymer Micelles

“…Therefore, tuning the macromolecular architecture to study its effect on the morphology and aggregation behavior is an important theme in this area. [ 1 ] Amphiphilic copolymers of various architectures such as linear, cyclic, brush, and dendritic have attracted great interest recently due to their promise of novel and controlled morphologies in solution that can be tuned in terms of hydrophobic dendron with hydrophilic linear chain [9][10][11] or by connecting hydrophilic dendron to hydrophobic linear chain. [12][13][14] Typically, the micellar behavior and the morphology of such linear-dendritic copolymers have been studied with reference to dendron generation.…”