Photo-controllable Supramolecular Nanocontainer

The self-assembly of block copolymer inducing the formation of polymeric micelles or vesicles, has been widely explored as a kind of facilitated supramolecular nanocontainers. The high stability and high loading capacity of these supramolecular nanocontainers promise that they can be potentially applied in catalysis and drug delivery. In this thesis, we are mainly focused on introducing functional groups in the supramolecular nanocontainers. By combining photo-stimuli, it is hoped that the supramolecular nanocontainers can successfully capsulate and release guest molecules under control. The work includes two parts as follows:1) We have developed a photo-controllable switches, based on the reversible host-guest interaction between azobenzene and cyclodextrin, to tune the self-assembly of an azobenzene-containing surfactant. Furthermore, the photo-controllable switches were convalently imbedded in the block copolymer aggregates to fabricate a novel supramolecular nanocontainer. In this case, the block copolymer aggregates can load guest molecules when the switches are on-state, but lose this ability when the switches are off-state. It is anticipated that this method will open an avenue to prepare stimuli-responsive artificial enzyme mimics.2) We presented a concept of tuning the molecular amphiphilicity towards the controllable self-assembly and disassembly. On the basis of this concept, a photocontrolled supramolecular polymer container is developed, by the association of the photo-responsive sufactants with a double-hydrophilic block copolymer based on eletro static interaction. This is a facile approach for preparing nanocontainer without complicated processing. It is anticipitated that the integration of various building blocks in the supramolecular polymer will endow the final nanocontainer with great functions.Although there still remains a large space to explore before the real application of both new supramolecular systems, it is hoped that both nanocontainer-fabricating approaches presented in this thesis can input new bloods to the nanoscience and nanotechnology.