This technology is a method of efficiently synthesizing sequence-defined synthetic polymers with applications in materials science and chemical engineering.
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Applications
Problem Addressed
Biopolymers, such as DNA and protein, perform complex molecular functions in nature. Inspired by these natural compounds, chemists have long sought to create functional synthetic polymers. However, making large synthetic polymers remains challenging. Bulk polymer synthesis reactions result in polydisperse solutions that contain polymer with various lengths and chirality. Templated or iterative monomer additions can give rise to a synthetic polymer of defined identity, but these synthesis techniques require huge numbers of sequential reactions to produce relatively small synthetic polymers. This technology is a new, highly efficient, method for synthesizing sequence specific synthetic polymers.
Technology
This technology uses an iterative exponential growth technique to produce pure synthetic polymers with high efficiency. The monomers are designed to have two protected, orthogonal linking groups separated by an internal functional group. Once de-protected, the linking groups react to link the monomers in the correct orientation. Rather than adding monomer one at a time, the protected linking groups can be selectively de-protected to link n-mers in an exponential fashion (ex. 2-mer, 4-mer, 16-mer). The highly efficient linking reactions combined with the exponential growth scheme means that large synthetic polymers can be built quickly and efficiently. Importantly, the reactions can be structured so that the identity and chirality of the functional groups can be precisely ordered, which was previously only possible using laborious sequential polymer synthesis.
Advantages
- Highly efficient synthesis of synthetic polymers
- Customizable sequence of functional group identity and chirality along the entire polymer