Abstract
The polymer class of poly(2-oxazoline)s currently is under intensive investigation due to the versatile properties that can be tailor-made by the variation and manipulation of the functional groups they bear. In particular their utilization in the biomedic(in)al field is the subject of numerous studies. Given the mechanism of the cationic ring-opening polymerization, a plethora of synthetic strategies exists for the preparation of poly(2-oxazoline)s with dedicated functionality patterns, comprising among others the functionalization by telechelic end-groups, the incorporation of substituted monomers into (co)poly(2-oxazoline)s, and polymeranalogous reactions. This review summarizes the current state-of-the-art of poly(2-oxazoline) preparation and showcases prominent examples of poly(2-oxazoline)-based materials, which are retraced to the desktop-planned synthetic strategy and the variability of their properties for dedicated applications.
Highlights
Since their discovery in 1966 [1,2,3,4], the class of poly(2-oxazoline)s has received great interest due to its versatility in enabling the preparation of materials with tailor-made properties
This review aims to summarize the state-of-the-art of “poly(2-oxazoline) synthesis” and in particular to correlate the targeted properties of the poly(2-oxazoline)s and the materials derived from that class of polymers with the strategies required for their synthesis
While this review focuses on the synthesis of poly(2-oxazoline)s and copoly(2-oxazoline)s as well as the derived materials, the properties of the polymers and materials themselves will be discussed only for dedicated examples, and the reader interested in more and/or more general details is referred to recent reviews in that area [11,12,13,14,15,16,17,18,19,20]
Summary
Since their discovery in 1966 [1,2,3,4], the class of poly(2-oxazoline)s has received great interest due to its versatility in enabling the preparation of materials with tailor-made properties. The hydrolysis of poly(2-oxazoline)s yields poly(ethylene imine)s (Scheme 1), which opens a whole new area of synthetic strategies for (polymeranalogous) polymer modification, even further expanding the “toolbox” of chemical findings for fine-tuning the poly(2-oxazoline)-based materials with numerous potential applications in the biomedical sector [7,8,9]. Reaction scheme for the methyl tosylate-initiated cationic ring-opening polymerization CROP of 2-oxazolines for the example of the block copolymerization of 2-methyl-2-oxazoline and 2-ethyl-2-oxazoline, yielding the diblock copolymer poly(2-methyl-2-oxazoline)-block-poly(2-ethyl-2-oxazoline) after termination with water (top). The term “polymeranalogous reactions” is used for reactions altering the side-chain functionalities; reports of the usage of semitelechelic and telechelic poly(2-oxazoline)s as macroinitiators have been summarized in the “initiator” section
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