Issue 19, 2023

Rational design and topochemical synthesis of polymorphs of a polymer

Abstract

Packing a polymer in different ways can give polymorphs of the polymer having different properties. β-Turn forming peptides such as 2-aminoisobutyric acid (Aib)-rich peptides adopt several conformations by varying the dihedral angles. Aiming at this, a β-turn-forming peptide monomer would give different polymorphs and these polymorphs upon topochemical polymerization would yield polymorphs of the polymer, we designed an Aib-rich monomer N3-(Aib)3-NHCH2–C[triple bond, length as m-dash]CH. This monomer crystallizes as two polymorphs and one hydrate. In all forms, the peptide adopts β-turn conformations and arranges in a head-to-tail manner with their azide and alkyne units proximally placed in a ready-to-react alignment. On heating, both the polymorphs undergo topochemical azide–alkyne cycloaddition polymerization. Polymorph I polymerized in a single-crystal-to-single-crystal (SCSC) fashion and the single-crystal X-ray diffraction analysis of the polymer revealed its screw-sense reversing helical structure. Polymorph II maintains its crystallinity during polymerization but gradually becomes amorphous upon storage. The hydrate III undergoes a dehydrative transition to polymorph II. Nanoindentation studies revealed that different polymorphs of the monomer and the corresponding polymers exhibited different mechanical properties, in accordance with their crystal packing. This work demonstrates the promising future of the marriage of polymorphism and topochemistry for obtaining polymorphs of polymers.

Graphical abstract: Rational design and topochemical synthesis of polymorphs of a polymer

Supplementary files

Article information

Article type
Edge Article
Submitted
04 jan 2023
Accepted
13 apr 2023
First published
19 apr 2023
This article is Open Access

All publication charges for this article have been paid for by the Royal Society of Chemistry
Creative Commons BY-NC license

Chem. Sci., 2023,14, 5132-5140

Rational design and topochemical synthesis of polymorphs of a polymer

V. Athiyarath, L. A. Mathew, Y. Zhao, R. Khazeber, U. Ramamurty and K. M. Sureshan, Chem. Sci., 2023, 14, 5132 DOI: 10.1039/D3SC00053B

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