Dual stimuli triggerable degradation of graft copolymers

Abstract

Here we report one-pot stimuli-responsive tandem degradation of a graft copolymer with alternating backbone functionalities. A well-defined polymeric species is formed by selectively cleaving one of the structural repeat units in the main chain, and can be further ‘cut’ into half by cleaving the second structural unit. The high selectivity of these two orthogonal steps ensures that the order of the stimuli employed does not affect the outcome.