Degradable Polymer Stars Based on Tannic Acid Cores by ATRP

• Main Authors: Julia Cuthbert, Saigopalakrishna S. Yerneni, Mingkang Sun, Travis Fu, Krzysztof Matyjaszewski
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: MDPI AG 2019-04-01
• Series: Polymers
• Subjects: degradable polymer; tannic acid; ATRP; polymer star
• Online Access: https://www.mdpi.com/2073-4360/11/5/752

Degradable polymers are crucial in order to reduce plastic environmental pollution and waste accumulation. In this paper, a natural product, tannic acid was modified to be used as a polymer star core. The tannic acid was modified with atom transfer radical polymerization (ATRP) initiators and characterized by ¹H NMR, FT-IR, and XPS. Twenty-five arm polymer stars were prepared by photoinduced ATRP of poly(methyl methacrylate) (PMMA) or poly(oligo(ethylene oxide) methacrylate) (molar mass M_w = 300 g/mol) (P(OEO₃₀₀MA)). The polymer stars were degraded by cleaving the polymer star arms attached to the core by phenolic esters under mild basic conditions. The stars were analyzed before and after degradation by gel permeation chromatography (GPC). Cytotoxicity assays were performed on the P(OEO₃₀₀MA) stars and corresponding degraded polymers, and were found to be nontoxic at the concentrations tested.