Synthesis of hetero-grafted amphiphilic diblock molecular brushes and their self-assembly in aqueous Medium

A facile and efficient 'grafting through' strategy to synthesize hetero-grafted diblock molecular brushes with precisely controlled architecture orthogonality and the livingness of reversible addition fragmentation chain transfer (RAFT) polymerization and ring-opening metathesis polymerization (ROMP) was reported. These structures were transformed into amphiphilic diblock molecular brushes, which were then investigated as nanoscopic building blocks for the assembly of supramolecular nanostructures in aqueous medium. Supramolecular assembly of the nanoscopic amphiphilic block graft copolymers was investigated by using phase-segregation micellization methods that are traditional for linear block copolymers. These diblock molecular brushes were converted to amphiphilic nanostructures, whose aqueous solution self-assembly behaviors were studied.