Exploiting the tetrazine–norbornene reaction for single polymer chain collapse

Abstract

Single chain polymer nanoparticles (SCNPs) have been formed using polystyrenes decorated with pendent norbornenes and a bifunctional tetrazine crosslinker. Characterisation by size exclusion chromatography and ¹H NMR gives evidence for the formation of SCNPs by the tetrazine–norbornene reaction, whilst light scattering, neutron scattering, transmission electron microscopy and atomic force microscopy show that discrete well-defined nanoparticles are formed and their size in solution calculated.