Novel thermoresponsive homopolymers of poly[oligo(ethylene glycol) (acyloxy) methacrylate]s: LCST-type transition in water and UCST-type transition in alcohols

The study of thermoresponsive homopolymers has attracted great attention due to their broad application value. Herein, a series of novel thermoresponsive homopolymers of poly[oligo(ethylene glycol) (acyloxy) methacrylate]s containing oligo(ethylene glycol) (OEG) units and substituent groups of ester have been designed and prepared by RAFT polymerization. The solution properties of these polymers have been investigated in detail, which indicate that most of them exhibit lower critical solution temperature (LCST) in water and upper critical solution temperature (UCST) in alcohols, and their LCST-type or UCST-type cloud point temperature (TCPL or TCPU) is closely related to the OEG units and ester groups. Furthermore, the parameters affecting the thermoresponse of these polymers including polymerization degree (DP) and concentration have also been investigated. The present work not only discovers a series of novel thermoresponsive polymers, but also has certain guiding significance on the understanding of molecular structure and thermoresponsive property relationships, which is useful for the design of new thermosensitive polymers.