Some polymers can respond to changes in the environmental conditions in which they find themselves. These changes, also called "stimuli", include temperature, pH, ion concentration, and light, which are of increasing interest in the biomedical field (<i>e.g.</i> drug and gene delivery). Among the various stimuli studied, temperature allows an abrupt and discontinuous change in solubility properties of thermo-responsive polymers, which opens the way for the delivery of drugs. These are divided into two categories: 1) polymers with a Lower Critical Solution Temperature (LCST) and 2) polymers with an Upper Critical Solution Temperature (UCST). In the first case, the polymer is soluble below the phase transition temperature and insoluble above this temperature, while polymers with an UCST behavior exhibit the opposite phenomenon. Polymers belonging to the UCST category are much less common in the literature than those belonging to the LCST category. The UCST phase transition usually results from two types of interaction: hydrogen bond and Coulombic (or electrostatic) interactions. The latter property is essentially observed for zwitterionic polymers and polyelectrolytes in presence of salts. This presentation will describe the synthesis and thermal behavior of cationic comb polymers for which a thermo-responsivity (<i>i.e. </i>UCST behavior) in pure water was not expected.

Arginine units as instigators of an UCST behavior in cationic polymers in pure water

ACS Spring Meeting 2021

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