Nanostructuring polymers with cyclodextrins

Abstract

AbstractBulk solid polymer samples formed by the coalescence of guest polymer chains from their inclusion compounds (ICs) formed with host cyclodextrins (CDs) can result in significant reorganization of their phase structures, morphologies, and even chain conformations from those more commonly produced from randomly‐coiled, entangled polymer solutions and melts. When the cyclic host CDs are threaded by polymer chains to form crystalline polymer‐CD‐ICs, the guest polymers become highly extended due to the narrow host CD diameters (∼5, 7, and 9 Å for α‐, β‐, and γ‐CDs) and are segregated from neighboring guest polymer chains by the CD‐IC channel walls. As a consequence, when polymer‐CD‐IC crystals are treated with CD solvents that do not dissolve the guest polymers or are treated with amylase enzymes, the resulting coalesced bulk polymer samples often display properties distinct from those of normally produced bulk samples of the same polymers. In this article the CD‐IC processing of polymers to generate novel polymer microstructures and morphologies are described, to control the phase separation of immiscible blocks in block copolymers, and to form well‐mixed intimate blends of two or more polymers that are normally incompatible. The thermal and temporal stabilities of polymer samples coalesced from their ICs formed with CDs will also be mentioned, and it is suggested that the range of polymer properties can be greatly expanded by their CD‐IC processing. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.