Opportunities for fluorocarbons as building blocks of new micellar polymers

FLUO 12

Andre Laschewsky, laschews@rz.uni-potsdam.de1, Juliane Kristen2, Jean-Noel Marsat2, Michael Päch3, and Katja Skarabania2. (1) Institut fuer Chemie, Universität Potsdam, Karl-Liebknecht-Strasse 24-25, 14476 Golm, Germany, (2) Institut fuer Chemie, Universitaet Potsdam, Karl-Liebknecht-Strasse 24-25, 14476 Golm, Germany, (3) Water-Based Polymers and Colloids, Fraunhofer Institute for Applied Polymer Research FhG-IAP, P.O.Box 600651, 14406 Potsdam, Germany
The self-assembly of amphiphilic block copolymers in solution leads to a fascinating wealth of colloidal aggregates such as spherical micelles, worm-like micelles or polymeric vesicles. The self-organization processes can be driven by different types of interactions such as electrostatic ones, H-bonding, or hydrophobic effect. Hydrophobic domains thus formed may be additionally structured when fluorocarbon building blocks are employed, due to the mutual poor compatibility of fluorocarbons and most hydrocarbon derivatives. Still, the synthesis of amphiphilic block copolymers is far from trivial, in particular of such containing fluorocarbon blocks. We will present synthetic pathways using controlled radical polymerization techniques, in particular reversible addition-fragmentation transfer polymerization (RAFT) method to construct polymeric building blocks, taking advantage of their experimental simplicity and high tolerance to functional groups. The self-organization of such fluorocarbon bearing polymers in aqueous solution will be discussed.