Thermosensitive water-soluble copolymers with doubly responsive reversibly interacting entities

摘要

The precise control of the formation of stimuli-sensitive sequences(block or graft)as part of copolymer architectures is fascinating because of the remarkable phase behavior of their aqueous solutions.One of the most interesting solution properties of amphiphilic water-soluble copolymers is their ability to self-assemble into micelles,lamellar aggregate,vesicles and hydrogels.In this review we discuss the combinations of thermosensitive properties with other types of sensitivity:i.e.to pH,light,magnetic field,solvent quality,etc.,and their effects on the reversible self-assembly in aqueous copolymer solutions or on the hydrogel organization.For this purpose we describe thermosensitive polymers as well as methods for their controlled synthesis.The development of multi-functional building blocks imprinted into one macromolecule will help us to obtain controllable morphologies at the nanometer scale.Obviously,the multi-sensitive copolymer systems represent an essential part of supramolecular polymer chemistry where the environment can have a large effect on the degree of interaction between the individual components in the material.