Better Biodegradable Vinyl Polymer Materials by Improving Radical Ring-Opening Polymerization (rROP)

Julien Nicolas of the University Paris-Saclay/CNRS will discuss his lab's approach to rROP of CKAs with traditional vinyl monomers, which takes advantage of a new copolymerization system that enables the synthesis of well-defined vinyl copolymers exhibiting a rapid hydrolytic degradation in water or PBS. This system also exhibits a tunable upper critical solution temperature, which could find interesting applications in the biomedical field. He will also present a simple two-step polymerization process based on polymerization-induced self-assembly (PISA) that is able to generate aqueous suspensions of CKA-containing vinyl copolymer nanoparticles and uses thionolactones as alternative to CKAs to generate degradable thioester-containing polymer particles by aqueous PISA.

Jia Niu of Boston College will present two examples of another promising approach towards creating degradable vinyl polymers--the radical ring-opening polymerization of cyclic monomers. Existing cyclic monomers often suffer from incomplete ring opening and limited reactivity in the copolymerization with vinyl monomers, so Prof Niu’s lab pursues cyclic monomers that possess improved reactivities through experiments inspired by organic chemistry and carbohydrate chemistry principles. First, he will introduce a new class of monosaccharide cyclic ketene acetals that have demonstrated quantitative, regiospecific, and stereoselective radical ring-opening polymerization and copolymerization. Then, he will discuss the design of cyclic allylic sulfones which can undergo a radical cascade-triggered ring-opening polymerization, making them possess broad reactivities to vinyl monomers and favorable reactivity ratios in copolymerization.

Meet The Experts

• Julien Nicolas, Director of Research at CNRS, Institut Galien Paris-Saclay, University Paris-Saclay/CNRS & Associate Editor, Chemistry of Materials -** Jia Niu**, Associate Professor of Chemistry, Boston College
• Josh Worch, Assistant Professor of Chemistry, Virginia Tech