Synthesis and properties of clickable A(B-b-C)20 miktoarm star-shaped block copolymers with a terminal alkyne group

Star-shaped polymers have some unique physicochemical properties and important applications, but almost all of them obtained so far are unreactive homopolymers. Here we successfully synthesize a novel A(B-b-C)20 miktoarm star-shaped block copolymer consisting of a polystyrene arm with a reactive terminal alkyne group and 20 arms of poly(tert-butyl acrylate)-block-polystyrene (PtBA-b-PS) or poly(tert-butyl acrylate)-block-poly(ethylene oxide) (PtBA-b-PEO) with a β-cyclodextrin unit as a core through atom transfer radical polymerization (ATRP) combined with click reactions. The as-obtained A(B-b-C)20 star-shaped block copolymers can be further chemically bonded onto other surfaces due to their special terminal alkyne groups to form various hierarchical structures with high stability.