Damage and Repair in Informational Poly(N-substituted urethane)s |
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Authors: | Dr Tathagata Mondal Prof?Dr Laurence Charles Dr Jean-François Lutz |
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Institution: | 1. Precision Macromolecular Chemistry, Université de Strasbourg, CNRS, Institut Charles Sadron UPR22, 23 rue du Loess, 67034 Strasbourg Cedex 2, France;2. Aix Marseille Université, CNRS, UMR 7273, Institut of Radical Chemistry, 13397 Marseille Cedex 20, France |
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Abstract: | The degradation and repair of uniform sequence-defined poly(N-substituted urethane)s was studied. Polymers containing an ω-OH end-group and only ethyl carbamate main-chain repeat units rapidly degrade in NaOH solution through an ω→α depolymerization mechanism with no apparent sign of random chain cleavage. The degradation mechanism is not notably affected by the nature of the side-chain N-substituents and took place for all studied sequences. On the other hand, depolymerization is significantly influenced by the molecular structure of the main-chain repeat units. For instance, hexyl carbamate main-chain motifs block unzipping and can therefore be used to control the degradation of specific sequence sections. Interestingly, the partially degraded polymers can also be repaired; for example by using a combination of N,N′-disuccinimidyl carbonate with a secondary amine building-block. Overall, these findings open up interesting new avenues for chain-healing and sequence editing. |
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Keywords: | informational polymers molecular healing polymer degradation polymers sequence-controlled polymers |
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