Northwestern
University researchers have developed a new hybrid polymer with
removable
supramolecular compartments, shown in this molecular model.
(Credit: Mark E.
Seniw, Northwestern University)
(January 28, 2016) Hybrid
polymers could lead to new concepts in self-repairing materials, drug delivery
and artificial muscles
Imagine a polymer with removable parts that can deliver
something to the environment and then be chemically regenerated to function
again. Or a polymer that can lift weights, contracting and expanding the way
muscles do.
These functions require polymers with both rigid and soft
nano-sized compartments with extremely different properties that are organized
in specific ways. A completely new hybrid polymer of this type has been
developed by Northwestern University researchers that might one day be used in
artificial muscles or other life-like materials; for delivery of drugs,
biomolecules or other chemicals; in materials with self-repair capability; and
for replaceable energy sources.
“We have created a surprising new polymer with nano-sized
compartments that can be removed and chemically regenerated multiple times,”
said materials scientist Samuel I. Stupp, the senior author of the study.
“Some of the nanoscale compartments contain rigid
conventional polymers, but others contain the so-called supramolecular
polymers, which can respond rapidly to stimuli, be delivered to the environment
and then be easily regenerated again in the same locations. The supramolecular
soft compartments could be animated to generate polymers with the functions we
see in living things,” he said.
Stupp is director of Northwestern’s Simpson Querrey
Institute for BioNanotechnology. He is a leader in the fields of nanoscience
and supramolecular self-assembly, the strategy used by biology to create highly
functional ordered structures.