Preparation of Polymeric Nanoscale Networks from Cylindrical Molecular Bottlebrushes

• Published in: ACS nano Vol. 6; no. 7; pp. 6208 - 6214
• Main Authors: Wu, Dingcai, Nese, Alper, Pietrasik, Joanna, Liang, Yeru, He, Hongkun, Kruk, Michal, Huang, Liang, Kowalewski, Tomasz, Matyjaszewski, Krzysztof
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States American Chemical Society 24-07-2012
• Subjects: Molecular structure; Nanostructure; Nanotechnology; Networks; Polystyrene resins; Strategy; Surface area; Surface chemistry; Tuning; atom transfer radical polymerization (ATRP); nanoscale network; polystyrene molecular bottlebrush; adsorption; cross-linking; nanopore
• ISSN: 1936-0851; 1936-086X
• DOI: 10.1021/nn302096d

The design and control of polymeric nanoscale network structures at the molecular level remains a challenging issue. Here we construct a novel type of polymeric nanoscale networks with a unique microporous nanofiber unit employing the intra/interbrush carbonyl cross-linking of polystyrene side chains for well-defined cylindrical polystyrene molecular bottlebrushes. The size of the side chains plays a vital role in the tuning of nanostructure of networks at the molecular level. We also show that the as-prepared polymeric nanoscale networks exhibit high specific adsorption capacity per unit surface area because of the synergistic effect of their unique hierarchical porous structures. Our strategy represents a new avenue for the network unit topology and provides a new application for molecular bottlebrushes in nanotechnology.