Changing Self-Assembly Through Degradation: Phenyl Vinyl Ketone Polymer Nanoparticles Under Light.

ABSTRACT: Photodegradable nanoparticles with sphere, worm, and vesicle morphologies were synthesized following polymerization induced self-assembly (PISA), incorporating a photoresponsive phenyl vinyl ketone (PVK) block and a nonphoto responsive 2-hydroxypropyl methacrylamide (HPMA) block. The photodegradation of nanoparticles under UV revealed that the initial shapes of sphere and vesicle particles are retained even until 7 h and after 24 h of photo-induced degradation, respectively, despite a significant reduction in molecular weight (M_n). This could be due to the assembly of degraded PVK fragments in the hydrophobic region, maintaining the relative hydrophilic to hydrophobic ratio. However, worm nanoparticles exhibited a fast morphology reversal after 2 min of degradation, yielding sph

SUBMITTER: Weerasinghe MASN 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC12559474 | biostudies-literature | 2025 Oct

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature