SYNTHESIS, CHARACTERIZATION, AND SELF- ASSEMBLY OF AMPHIPHILIC COPOLYMER BASED ON POLY(ACRYLIC ACID)

Abstract

Poly(acrylic acid) (PAA) based amphiphilic copolymers have drawn attention in recent years for its unique pH responsive and self-assembly behaviour and wide applications in biochemical and medicine. Recent studies towards PAA containing self-assemblies have been more focussed on the well-established, linear typed PAA-PS and PAA-PEG systems. However, they are either not suitable for human body applications or too hydrophilic to form stable micelle upon dilution. Four different architectures of PAA based amphiphilic copolymers were designed, i.e., random-type PAA-co-polyhedral oligomeric silsequioxane (POSS), triblock copolymers of poly(lactide)-PAA (PLA-b-PAA-b-PLA), dendritic-like PLA-b-d-PAA and star-like hybrid polymers having multi linear dendritic-like amphiphilic arms of PAA-(PLA-poly(ethylene glycol)) linked to an inorganic POSS core. Their self-assembly behaviours and their potential application in biomedical industry were discussed in this work.