Exploiting the tetrazine–norbornene reaction for single polymer chain collapse†
Abstract
Single chain polymer nanoparticles (SCNPs) have been formed using polystyrenes decorated with pendent norbornenes and a bifunctional tetrazine crosslinker. Characterisation by size exclusion chromatography and 1H NMR gives evidence for the formation of SCNPs by the tetrazine–norbornene reaction, whilst light scattering, neutron scattering, transmission electron microscopy and atomic force microscopy show that discrete well-defined nanoparticles are formed and their size in solution calculated.