Growing Polymer Vesicles Generated by Polymerization Induced Self-Assembly Coupled With a Living Chemical Reactor

• Main Authors: Zhihui Lu, Jinshan Guo
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Frontiers Media S.A. 2020-09-01
• Series: Frontiers in Bioengineering and Biotechnology
• Subjects: chemical oscillation; PISA; polymeric vesicles; self-assembly; biomimetics
• Online Access: https://www.frontiersin.org/article/10.3389/fbioe.2020.01018/full

Chemical oscillatory reactions have attracted intensive attention due to their autonomous, continuous, and periodic features. Herein, the radicals generated in Belousov-Zhabotinsky (BZ) oscillator was used to initiate RAFT (reversible addition-fragmentation chain transfer) polymerization of 2-methoxyethyl acrylate (MEA) extending from hydrophilic poly(ethylene glycol) chain transfer agent (PEG-CTA) to give amphiphilic block copolymer, which self-assembled into collective objects with a size ranging from sub-micron to micron. Small-to-giant polymer vesicles could be generated using the above-mentioned BZ-PISA technology, the encapsulation of active BZ recipe into the vesicles also endorses the vesicles with growing features with potential for drug delivery and biomedical applications.