The Polymer Society of Korea

Abstract

Metal-phenolic networks (MPNs), formed through coordination bonding between phenolic molecules and metal ions, are a versatile class of supramolecular materials for engineering particle systems. The properties of MPNs have been reported to be directly influenced by the selection of different phenolic molecules. However, the selection of MPN building blocks is limited to naturally occurring and commercially available phenolic building blocks. Herein, we report a simple and robust approach to incorporate phenolic moieties into functional polymer chains, thereby providing customizable macromolecular building blocks into MPN systems. Specifically, we fabricated various functional particles using biscatechol-functionalized polymers having thermoresponsive, hydrophobic, programmable, and charge-tunable properties. This strategy offers a synthetic platform for dynamic and functional MPN systems with potential applications in materials science and biomedical applications.