Preparation of jellyfish-shaped amphiphilic block-graft copolymers consisting of a poly(ε-caprolactone)-block-poly(pentafluorostyrene) ring and poly(ethylene glycol) lateral brushes

A versatile synthetic route to jellyfish-shaped amphiphilic block-graft copolymers with a hydrophobic ring of controllable dimensions, consisting of tailored length and number of poly(ε-caprolactone) (PCL) and poly(pentafluorostyrene) (PFS) blocks, and hydrophilic poly(ethylene glycol) (PEG) brushes, has been developed via the combination of ring-opening polymerization (ROP), atom transfer radical polymerization (ATRP), alkyne-azide click reaction and thiol-para-fluorine click reaction. The chemical structures and compositions of all the polymers were characterized by nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy, gel permeation chromatography (GPC), thermogravimetric analyses (TGA), and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS). The morphology of micelles from self-assembly of the cyclic-[PCL-b-P(FS-g-PEG)] copolymer in an aqueous medium was investigated by field emission scanning electron microscopy (FESEM).