CIQUS researchers describe the first example of the independent and simultaneous control of both elongation and helicity (rotation sense) in a helical polymer.
This work has been selected as front cover of the journal Chemical Science, and it has applications in both the field of sensors and smart polymers that respond to external stimuli. This article presents a polymer that responds selectively to changes in the polarity of the solvent (by inverting the helical sense) and to the donor ability of the solvent (by both inverting and stretching/compressing the backbone).
Thus, the polymer can be selectively stimulated to adopt any of the four structural forms: two different rotation senses (right/left) and two different lengths (stretched/compressed), constituting a four-state sensor.
The development has been entirely made by the following CIQUS researchers: Seila Leiras (predoctoral researcher), Felix Freire (Ramón y Cajal researcher) and José Manuel Seco, who belong to the Research Group of Emilio Quiñoá and Ricardo Riguera (the latter recently awarded by the Spanish Royal Society of Chemistry with the Felix Serratosa Medal).
This research is the continuation of a series of previously published works that have been published in prestigious journals such as Angewandte Chemie and Journal of the American Chemical Society. All of them are part of the research line about sensors based on stimuli-responsive polymers.
The final goal is to develop new nanomaterials where distinct properties are combined (optical, conductive, magnetic, encapsulating...) in such a way that nanocapsules and other nanocompounds with multifunctional behaviour are obtained with potential applications in areas such as information technology (data storage, new visualization technologies, new biochips…), optics (filters…), chemistry (new processes in catalysis) and medicine (diagnosis systems…).
Representation of four different structures that can be obtained from a single polymer depending on the physicochemical characteristics of the solvents.
Helical structures obtained from molecular mechanics calculations and AFM studies
