Themed collection Polymer Chemistry 15th anniversary regional spotlight collection: The Americas

Oxygenated block copolymers with biodegradable polyester segments can be prepared in one-pot through sequential or simultaneous addition of monomers. This review highlights the state of the art in this area.

A review of hydrogels containing dynamic bonds that are shown to provide benefits for applications including self-healing and stimuli-induced stiffness changes.

Recent developments in the polymerization of elemental sulfur, inverse vulcanization and functional Chalcogenide Hybrid Inorganic/Organic Polymers (CHIPs) are reviewed.

The increasing prevalence of antibiotic-resistant bacterial infections, coupled with the decline in the number of new antibiotic drug approvals, has created a therapeutic gap that portends an emergent public health crisis.

Responsive polymer-based materials are capable of altering their chemical and/or physical properties upon exposure to external stimuli. This review highlights their use for sensing and biosensing, drug delivery, and artificial muscles/actuators.

The use of light to manipulate polymer formation, structure and properties represents one of the most powerful paradigms in polymer science.

This work presents a comprehensive review on the progress of the “breath figures” technique for structuring porous membranes. It focuses on the study of variables, materials, current and potential applications and characterization techniques.

This review summarizes the recent developments in hyperbranched polyethylenes synthesized through Pd–diimine-catalyzed chain walking polymerization.

This review highlights the various FDA-approved PEGylated protein drugs. The intended therapeutic targets of each of the drugs, as well as the method of chemical attachment of poly(ethylene glycol) are described.

This review highlights important advances in the synthesis and self-assembly of miktoarm polymers, followed by applications of these star macromolecules in areas including drug delivery.

This tutorial review of linear viscoelasticity is targeted at polymer chemists working with covalent adaptable networks. It provides an overview of concepts, analysis, misconceptions, and best practices for rheological experiments.

Soft, fully renewable vitrimers have been introduced to circumvent the lack of recyclability of traditional elastomers with permanent cross-linked structures, while preserving the advantages of rheo-structural stability, and mechanical properties.

We developed reprocessable polyhydroxyurethane (PHU) networks with full property recovery and incorporating both associative and dissociative dynamic chemistry.

We report the effect of polymer composition on moisture sensitivity and rehealability of polyimine thermosets.

A combination of supramolecular and dynamic covalent linkages were used to create creep limited self-healing materials.

Functional, micropatterned and multicomponent polymer brush surfaces can be rapidly fabricated via base-catalyzed thiol–isocyanate “click” reactions.

Reprocessable and creep-resistant poly(n-hexyl methacrylate) dynamic networks were synthesized from piperidine-based and non-piperidine-based dialkylamino disulfide cross-linkers at conventional polymerization conditions.

The synthesis and characterization of a new asymmetric isoindigo-based semiconducting polymer design containing branched alkyl and linear hydroxyl side chains is reported.

Controlling the dispersity of PSS allows to control the performance of PEDOT:PSS in organic electrochemical transistors (OECTs).

Single-electron transfer (SET)-induced decarboxylative backbone radical generation was exploited to produce statistical olefin-acrylate copolymers. Quenching of the backbone radical with an H atom donor yielded ethylene or propylene repeat units.

BiTEMPS dynamic chemistry offers a simple method to prepare reprocessable polymer networks with excellent long-term creep resistance at elevated temperatures and full recovery of cross-link density after recycling.

The rate of stress relaxation in a vitrimer can be modulated by changing solely the structure of the cross-linker electrophile.

Photocured polymers have recently gained tremendous interest for a wide range of applications especially industrial prototyping/additive manufacturing. This work aims to develop natural phenolic-based (meth)acrylates to expand the use of sustainable and mechanically robust 3D printable formulations.

This paper compares the mechanical properties of low-bandgap polymers with different side chains.

To produce anion conductive and durable polymer electrolytes for alkaline fuel cell applications, a series of cross-linked quaternary ammonium functionalized poly(2,6-dimethyl-1,4-phenylene oxide)s with mass-based ion exchange capacities (IEC) ranging from 1.80 to 2.55 mmol g⁻¹ were synthesized via thiol–ene click chemistry.

The mechanism and kinetics of thiol–maleimide “click” reactions have been modeled computationally under a variety of conditions and further investigated using experimental competition reactions.

Water soluble epoxy resins were prepared from diglycidyl ethers of isosorbide (DGEI) and isosorbide diamine (ISODA).

The crucial step of SET-LRP, disproportionation of CuX and activation of the initiator by nascent Cu(0) particles, was visualized in polar and nonpolar solvents and monomers to elucidate SET-LRP mechanism.

Poly(ethylene glycol)-based hydrogels formed by Michael-type addition of phenylthiols to maleimides degrade under reducing conditions via retro-addition reactions.

Retention of the active end group functionality during grafting-from RAFT polymerizations from model proteins allowed subsequent chain extension to give diblock copolymer–protein conjugates with thermoresponsive behavior.