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Significance Statement
The work presented in “Polymer international” by Tylkowski et al. was performed at the METEOR research group at the Universitat Rovira i Virgili, Tarragona, Spain.
The mission of METEOR is performing research, development, innovation, and technology and knowledge transfer in the area of: environmentally-responsive materials synthesis, microcapsules and membrane technologies as well as process engineering with the aim to technologically and industrially enhance our surroundings. Our group has a plethora of experience in collaboration with industrial and academic partners as part of past or ongoing EU funded projects, such as: IMPULSE, TOK Marie Curie, CAP-IT! and PhotCap.
In the paper “Synthesis and characterization of a new family of photoactive liquid crystalline polyesters based on α-methylstilbene” we reported the synthesis and characterization of three nematic liquid crystal polyesters containing α-methylstilbene moieties in the main chains and aliphatic or aromatic spacers. Moreover we prepared a dense membrane by casting method using a P2 polymer. In this paper we demonstrated that synthesized polymers exhibit E–Z photoisomerization and we showed that the membrane wettability increased upon photoirradiation.
Since the main goal of our research group is to foster the discovery of breakthrough technologies for the controlled delivery of actives, the next step of our investigation has been focused on the preparation and characterization of photo-triggered microcapsules based poly(α–methylstilbenesebacoate-co-α-methylstilbeneisophthalate) (P4 polymer), containing different core materials, by using a phase-inversion precipitation process. Results of this study are presented in the paper Preparation and Characterization of Light-Sensitive Microcapsules Based on a Liquid Crystalline Polyester published in Langmuir 2013, 29 (5), pp 1601–1608.
If you have any questions regarding our research please do not hesitate to contact us ([email protected]) or visit our website http://www.etseq.urv.es/citmeteor/meteor/
Polymer International, Volume 63, Issue 2, pages 315–326, 2014.
Bartosz Tylkowski1,2, Krzysztof A Bogdanowicz1, Veronica Ambrogi3,Albena Lederer4, Violetta Patroniak5 and
Marta Giamberini1,*
- Departament d’Enginyeria Química, Universitat Rovira i Virgili, Tarragona, Spain and
- Centre Tecnològic de la Química de Catalunya, Carrer Marcellí Domingo, Tarragona, Spain and
- Dipartimento di Ingegneria dei Materiali e della Produzione, Università di Napoli ‘Federico II’, Napoli, Italy and
- Leibniz Institute of Polymer Research Dresden, Dresden, Germany and
- Faculty of Chemistry, Adam Mickiewicz University, Poznan, Poland
Abstract
A liquid crystal polyester and two liquid crystal copolyesters containing {Alpha}-methylstilbene moieties and aliphatic or aromatic spacers in the backbone were synthesized in good yields, with the aim of using them for photosensitive microcapsule preparation. The synthesized polymers were fully characterized with respect to thermal stability, type of mesophase, molecular weight and E–Zphotoisomerization. Combination of monomers with different structures allowed adjustment of the polymer characteristics such as degree of crystallinity and glass transition temperature, as verified using X-ray diffraction, polarized optical microscopy and differential scanning calorimetry. Quantitative 1H NMR and UV-visible experiments were performed in order to investigate E–Zphotoisomerization after photoirradiation at 364 nm. Finally, a membrane based on one of these polymers was prepared and it was found that its wettability increased on photoirradiation. © 2013 Society of Chemical Industry
© 2013 Society of Chemical Industry
