Fluorinated reversed micelles by polymerization-induced self-assembly with main-chain-type semifluorinated alternating copolymer

Abstract

In this work, based on the semifluorinated macro-RAFT (reversible addition-fragmentation chain transfer) agent and polymerization-induced self-assembly (PISA) strategy, we established a mild and facile method to prepare reversed micelles up to 40 wt% of solid content with main-chain-type semifluorinated alternating copolymer as shell and hydrophilic polymer as core for the first time. The fluorinated macro-RAFT agent was synthesized by combination of step transfer-addition & radical-termination (START) polymerization and post-modification method. The reversed micelles were generated by the PISA of N,N-dimethacrylamide (DMA) in the presence of the fluorinated macro-RAFT agent in the non-polar solvent toluene at 70 °C, and fluorinated reversed micelles can be fixed in the presence of crosslinker ethyleneglycol dimethacrylate (EGDMA). This strategy will facilitate to open a new way in designing novel functional synthetic fluorinated nanomaterials.