Abstract
Staudinger established a century ago the existence of covalent macromolecules, work that led to the development of transformative materials of great benefit to society and a “quantum leap” in our understanding of biological systems. Over the past few decades the concept of supramolecular polymers has emerged–chemical systems in which structural units bond strongly to each other non-covalently. These dynamic systems actually exist in the natural world and can create soft materials with structures, properties, and functions beyond the ones we know in Staudinger polymers. We reflect here on the potential of novel systems in which covalent and supramolecular polymers are chemically integrated and describe them as hybrid bonding polymers. This paper describes the concept with recent examples from the Stupp laboratory, and discusses their potential functions as robotic materials that mimic living matter and structures that offer new ideas on how to recycle and reuse soft materials.
| Original language | English (US) |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 124-131 |
| Number of pages | 8 |
| Journal | Israel Journal of Chemistry |
| Volume | 60 |
| Issue number | 1-2 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - Jan 1 2020 |
Funding
The authors are grateful for funding of the experimental work described here from the Stupp Laboratory by the U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Science, Basic Energy Sciences, under award DE-FG02-00ER45810; the Center for Bio-Inspired Energy Sciences (CBES), an Energy Frontiers Research Center (EFRC) funded by the U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Science, Office of Basic Energy Sciences, under award DE-SC0000989; the Center for Regenerative Nanomedicine (CRN) at the Simpson Querrey Institute, the National Science Foundation through award DMR-1508731. TDC acknowledges funding support from an American Australian Association Fellowship. The authors acknowledge Mark A. Seniw for his work on molecular graphics and illustrations displayed in the paper.
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- General Chemistry