Oxygen-Tolerant, Red Light-Driven Controlled Synthesis of Easily Degradable and High Molecular Weight α-Lipoic Acid-Vinyl Copolymers.

ABSTRACT: α-Lipoic acid (LA) has recently emerged as an attractive, inexpensive monomer for synthesizing degradable polymers via ring-opening of its 1,2-dithiolane, introducing easily cleavable disulfide linkages into polymer backbones. Reversible addition-fragmentation chain transfer (RAFT) copolymerization with vinyl monomers enables access to degradable poly(disulfide)s with controlled molecular weights. However, conventional thermal RAFT methods suffer from oxygen sensitivity, limited LA incorporation (<40 mol%), and modest degrees of polymerization (DP < 300). Here, we report an oxygen-tolerant, red-light-driven RAFT approach using methylene blue (MB⁺) as a photosensitizer, and triethanolamine (TEOA) as a sacrificial electron donor. This photoRAFT strategy affords well-defined LA-vinyl copolyme

SUBMITTER: Levkovsky IO 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC12559452 | biostudies-literature | 2025 Oct

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature