The drive to design functional soft materials is often accompanied by significant synthetic challenges. It is much easier to propose a concept than to actualize it; this is even truer with the vast design space of polymer-based materials. We have investigated several classes of polymers, each with their own synthetic challenges, in efforts to relate structure from the monomer level to structure at the meso-scale to function at larger length scales. For example, we have designed a range of synthetic systems that are designed to assemble in water into smaller micellar aggregates at low temperatures and larger vesicles at higher temperatures. Controlling structure at the block level enables control over the rate and nature of structural evolution during the response and has facilitated the design of responsive hydrogels. The design of these and other systems, potentially including degradable polyacetal block copolymers, metal-functionalized polymers and conjugated polymers for photovoltaic applications, and our efforts to better understand the behavior of the resulting materials will be discussed.

Marshalling methods to make soft materials: Design and synthesis of polymer-based materials

256th National Meeting (2018)

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