Themed collection Emerging Investigators

This themed issue of Polymer Chemistry highlights the work of emerging investigators in the polymer chemistry field. Editor in Chief David Haddleton introduces the issue.

Supramolecular polymers for solar energy harvesting can be created by considering carefully the relationship between topology, assembly, and photophysics.

Glyconanoparticles and their interactions with lectins.

Many polymer gels display network defects and crosslinking inhomogeneity. This review reflects and interrelates investigations on the characterization of such polymer-network heterogeneity and on its impact on the swelling, elasticity, and permeability of polymer gels.

Hydrogels that respond to multiple stimuli (i.e., light, reducing and aqueous microenvironment) were synthesized using thiol-Michael type reaction and degradation kinetics along with release of nanobeads was characterized.

Benzothiadiazole-functionalized dinuclear platinum(II) acetylide bolaamphiphiles have been demonstrated to form nanoparticles in protic solvents, serving as novel fluorescent labels for bio-imaging applications with good biocompatibility and sufficient stability.

The electronic transport properties of HBC networks in non-aqueous electrolyte are tailored using synthetic chemistry and supramolecular design principles.

The intra-chain radical polymerization of pendant methacryloyl decorated poly(norbornene) imides is a viable route to single-chain nanoparticles, however this process is complicated by adventitious molecular oxygen.

We report a facile synthesis of highly uniform poly(styrene sulfonic acid) microgels, which carry a strong polyelectrolyte group at every repeating unit.

The efficient and regioselective NMe₄OH-mediated aromatic azide and alkyne click polymerization to generate 1,5-regioregular polytriazoles was successfully established.

Two architecturally controlled supramolecular polymers have been fabricated via the concurrent integration of orthogonal non-covalent recognition motifs, demonstrating significant chain topological-dependent supramolecular polymerization behaviors.

Hydrothermal polymerization (HTP) yields highly crystalline polyimides. A general picture of the mechanisms leading to crystallinity and morphology is provided.

Polymer brush grafted SiO₂ NPs provide Nafion nanocomposite membranes with superior proton conductivities at ambient and moderately high temperatures over the entire range of relative humidity.

Enhancing the photodissociation efficiency of terminal functionalities in RAFT polymers makes them versatile macrophotoinitiators.

On-line microreactor/ESI-MS experiments and kinetic simulations on single unit monomer insertions are combined to assess the efficiency of the SUMI process.

The adhesion forces between a single bacterial cell and different polymer brushes were measured directly with an atomic force microscope and correlated with their resistance to fouling.

High separations costs reduce the practicality of polymers sourced from renewable bio-oils, motivating economical multicomponent bio-oil polymerizations. Thus, this paper investigates polymerization behavior of model bio-oil components and their mixtures.

With an additional methyl group in the ion bridge, sulfobutylbetaine (co)polymers show significantly higher UCSTs than their more common sulfopropylbetaine counterparts making them a promising class of smart materials.

A model was developed for the polymerization of methyl methacrylate at room temperature. The model used both free volume and empirical models for propagation, termination and several side reactions.

New dendronized hyperbranched polymers (DHPs) constructed by dendronized monomers, exhibit good comprehensive NLO performance, especially for thermostability.

A simple photochemical modification scheme is utilized to fabricate multifunctional and patterned coextruded fibers.

Investigation on the reactivity and the controlling ability of a series of amide-functionalized alkoxyamines based on the SG1 nitroxide is reported.

We present here the film-type chemosensors based on stimuli-responsive emissive polymers composed of boron diiminate. Hydrogen peroxide can be monitored by the emission enhancement.

Weak Lewis bases and solvent polarity affected the frequency of the crossover reactions in the concurrent cationic vinyl-addition and ring-opening copolymerization of vinyl ethers and oxiranes.

Functional polyhydrocarbosilane-based homo and diblock copolymers are prepared by combination of anionic ring-opening polymerization and postmodification with functional vinyl compounds.

Fluorinated microgel star polymers work as fluorous nanocapsules to efficiently capture and thermo-responsively release perfluorinated guest compounds.

A novel dithiocarbamate chain transfer agent for reversible addition–fragmentation chain transfer polymerization with a directly polymerizable Z-group was synthesized and used to make bottlebrush polymers via multiple strategies.

We report on the synthesis of thiol-terminated, polyether-based block copolymers featuring a crosslinkable block and their use as ligands for Au-nanoparticles in organic solvents.

Thiol–ene photopolymerization in miniemulsion under non-stoichiometric conditions offers a facile route to functionalized polymer nanoparticles.

In this work, we demonstrate the use of organophotoredox catalysts under visible light to perform photoinduced electron transfer-reversible addition fragmentation chain transfer (PET-RAFT) for the polymerization of methacrylate monomers.

The performances of various protein-reactive RAFT CTAs to afford polymer-protein conjugation via a grafting-to approach were compared.

Amphiphilic random copolymers are designed to bear a corrosion inhibitor as cleavable side group, which can be released upon activation by chemical reduction.