Issue 14, 2015

Thermophilic films and fibers from photo cross-linkable UCST-type polymers

Abstract

Photo cross-linkable thermoresponsive polymers of UCST-type based on acrylamide (AAm) and acrylonitrile (AN) useful for preparing thermophilic hydrogel films and fibers are presented. The polymers prepared via free radical and reversible addition fragmentation chain-transfer (RAFT) polymerization methods using N-(4-benzoylphenyl)acrylamide (BPAm) as photo cross-linkable comonomers provided highly stable UCST-type phase transition in water reproducible without hysteresis for many cycles. The cloud point could be manipulated by varying the acrylonitrile amount in the feed. Chemically cross-linked hydrogel films and nanofibers (average diameter 500 nm) were successfully prepared from the ter-copolymers by solution casting and electrospinning followed by UV irradiation. These hydrogels showed a continuous positive volume transition behavior in water with increasing temperature that was utilized for the design of microactuators.

Graphical abstract: Thermophilic films and fibers from photo cross-linkable UCST-type polymers

Supplementary files

Article information

Article type
Paper
Submitted
26 Jan 2015
Accepted
13 Feb 2015
First published
13 Feb 2015
This article is Open Access
Creative Commons BY license

Polym. Chem., 2015,6, 2769-2776

Thermophilic films and fibers from photo cross-linkable UCST-type polymers

F. Liu, S. Jiang, L. Ionov and S. Agarwal, Polym. Chem., 2015, 6, 2769 DOI: 10.1039/C5PY00109A

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