Living Polymerization of an Amphiphilic Helical Aramid Diblock Copolymer

Abstract

We report herein the living polymerization of an amphiphilic helical aramid diblock copolymer made possible by the utilization of reagent PHOS3. Two monomers, 2,4-bis((2,5,8,11-tetraoxapentadecan-15-yl)oxy)-5-aminobenzoic acid and 5-amino-2,4-difluorobenzoic acid, were used to build the hydrophilic and hydrophobic blocks respectively. The diblock copolymer was characterized by NMR and GPC/SEC and its aggregation behavior was investigated with atomic force microscopy (AFM), multi-angle depolarized dynamic light scattering (DDLS), and small angle X-rays scattering (SAXS). The analysis strongly suggests the diblock copolymer self-assembles to form elongated, tube-like structures in water.