Amphiphilic Polymerizable Porphyrins Conjugated to a Polyglycerol Dendron Moiety as Functional Surfactants for Multifunctional Polymer Particles

An amphiphilic polyglycerol dendron (PGD) conjugated porphyrin (PGP) bearing a polymerizable group was successfully synthesized. The PGP was used as an effective surfactant in emulsion and microsuspension polymerization systems to prepare styrene and methacrylate polymer particles, and the use of PGP provided the simple polymer particles with fluorescence derived from the metalloporphyrin and high colloidal stability due to the PGD. Furthermore, based on confocal laser scanning microscopy, we observed that the particles spontaneously formed a core-shell morphology with the PGP localized in the shell region during the polymerization and demonstrated drug loading in the shell region using rhodamine B as a model drug. The results indicate that the use of the functional surfactant PGP led to the preparation of multifunctional polymer particles from simple monomer species, and the resulting particles possessed high colloidal stability, fluorescence, and drug loading capability.

Miniemulsion polymerization as a versatile tool for the synthesis of functionalized polymers

The miniemulsion technique is a particular case in the family of heterophase polymerizations, which allows the formation of functionalized polymers by polymerization or modification of polymers in stable nanodroplets. We present here an overview of the different polymer syntheses within the miniemulsion droplets as reported in the literature, and of the current trends in the field.