Polymer vesicles, or polymersomes, are built up out of a bilayer membrane comprising amphiphilic block copolymers, which encloses an aqueous interior domain. We have a specific interest to use polymersomes for the positioning of enzymes and other catalysts in order to create nanoreactors. One of the prerequisites is that the membrane structure is semi-permeable, which is not a trivial task. Over the past couple of years we have developed different strategies to create porous membranes by employing well-defined block copolymers via controlled polymerization methods. First of all, using ATRP, we constructed amphiphilic block copolymers, of which the hydrophobic domain could be switched to a water soluble state. By blending this polymer with a non-responsive amphiphilic block copolymer, a bilayer was created of which the responsive polymer could be washed out using a pH change, leading to pores in the membrane. A second approach utilized the swelling of the polymer membrane with organic solvent. For this method to work well, block copolymers were created by CRP with crosslinkable units in the membrane to prevent it from full dissolution. With these stabilized polymersomes, catalytic reactions in biphasic media were made possible. Finally polymersomes with unusual tubular shaped and bowl-shaped morphologies were created via post-modification and polymerization strategies, which allowed us to regulate catalytic activity.

Polymersome nanoreactors by controlled polymerization methods

254th National Meeting (2017)

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