Design of Polymers with Complex Architectures

Dear Colleagues,

The subject of this Special Issue is the compilation of reports on recent advances and future perspectives in the design of complex macromolecular architecture and the polymer materials formed therefrom. It will focus on the synthesis, characterization, and applications of these polymers having distinct characteristics due to their complex macromolecular microstructure and topology.

The tailoring of a well-defined complex macromolecular architecture forms the molecular basis for advanced polymer materials. An ever-growing variety of controlled polymerization methods that significantly outperform conventional polymerization processes with only limited topological control has a major impact on this area. As a result, macromolecular architectures of astounding complexity are now readily available, far beyond the wildest dreams of polymer chemists from yesterday. In recent years, a variety of block copolymers, star polymers, ring polymers, graft and comb copolymers, gradient copolymers, and hyperbranched polymers have been further developed and lifted to a hitherto unknown level of complexity. Their structures have been precisely tailored to achieve certain properties of the resulting materials, which serve in diverse application areas, such as nanomedicine, drug delivery, and materials science, to name but a few. Phenomena of phase separation and self-assembly have, e.g., been exploited to produce functional materials, intelligent and switchable polymers, and synthetic polymer materials with high mechanical performance.

The wide range of possible applications has its origins in the tailor-made design of polymer topologies at the molecular level, for which new approaches are constantly emerging. Despite the rapid advances that recent polymer science has made in topological control, many problems still need to be solved to fully exploit the potential of this fascinating class of materials. These open research topics as well as future perspectives are the focus of this Special Issue.

Prof. Dr. Philipp Vana
Guest Editor

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• Block copolymers
• Phase separation of block copolymers
• Ring polymers
• Star polymers
• Comb polymers
• Bottle–brush polymers
• Hyperbranched polymers
• Supramolecular polymers