Abstract
Reticulated nanoporous materials generated by versatile molecular framework approaches are limited to pore dimensions on the scale of the utilized rigid molecular building blocks (<5 nm). The inherent flexibility of linear polymers precludes their utilization as long framework connectors for the extension of this strategy to larger length scales. We report a method for the fabrication of mesoporous frameworks by using bottlebrush copolymers with reactive end blocks serving as rigid macromolecular interconnectors with directional reactivity. End-reactive bottlebrush copolymers with pendant alkene functionalities were synthesized by a combination of controlled radical polymerization and polymer modification protocols. Ru-catalyzed cross-metathesis cross-linking of bottlebrush copolymers with two reactive end blocks resulted in the formation of polymer frameworks where isolated cross-linked domains were interconnected with bottlebrush copolymer bridges. The resulting materials were characterized by a continuous network pore structure with average pore sizes of 9-50 nm, conveniently tunable by the length of the utilized bottlebrush copolymer building blocks. The materials fabrication strategy described in this work expands the length scale of molecular framework materials and provides access to mesoporous polymers with a molecularly tunable reticulated pore structure without the need for templating, sacrificial component etching, or supercritical fluid drying.
Original language | English (US) |
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Pages (from-to) | 8207-8214 |
Number of pages | 8 |
Journal | ACS nano |
Volume | 11 |
Issue number | 8 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - Aug 22 2017 |
Externally published | Yes |
Bibliographical note
Funding Information:This work was supported in part by the Donors of the American Chemical Society Petroleum Research Fund (55593-ND7) and by the National Science Foundation (DMR-1409467). The authors would like to thank Prof. Luis Colon for the help with nitrogen adsorption analysis. This research used resources of the Center for Functional Nanomaterials and CMS beamline of the National Synchrotron Light Source II, a U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Science User Facilities operated for the DOE Office of Science by Brookhaven National Laboratory under Contract No. DESC0012704.
Funding Information:
This research used resources of the Center for Functional Nanomaterials and CMS beamline of the National Synchrotron Light Source II, a U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Science User Facilities operated for the DOE Office of Science by Brookhaven National Laboratory under Contract No. DE-SC0012704.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2017 American Chemical Society.
Keywords
- bottlebrush copolymers
- cross-linking
- nanoporous materials
- organic frameworks
- polymer networks