title: Nanoparticles of well-defined 4-arm stars made using nanoreactors in water.
abstract: In this work, the use of a nanoreactor is demonstrated to rapidly prepare monodisperse polymer nanoparticles in water-based dispersion consisting of 4-arm star polymer via the R-group RAFT approach. It is shown that by heating a nanoparticle assembler above its lower critical solution temperature (LCST), stabilized nanoparticles are formed that act as a template for the 4-arm star RAFT-mediated polymerization of styrene. Monodisperse nanoparticles of size (between 40 and 90 nm) containing monodisperse polymer of desired molecular weight (30-95 k) are obtained with little star-star coupling due to compartmentalization. The nanoreactor technique allows independent control over the size and molecular weight with a 4-arm star topology.
authors.affiliation: Australian Institute for Bioengineering and Nanotechnology, The University of Queensland, Brisbane, QLD, 4072, Australia.
authors.forename: Khaled O
authors.initials: KO
authors.lastname: Sebakhy
authors.affiliation: Australian Institute for Bioengineering and Nanotechnology, The University of Queensland, Brisbane, QLD, 4072, Australia.
authors.forename: Mikhail
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Gavrilov
authors.affiliation: Australian Institute for Bioengineering and Nanotechnology, The University of Queensland, Brisbane, QLD, 4072, Australia.
authors.forename: David
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Valade
authors.affiliation: Australian Institute for Bioengineering and Nanotechnology, The University of Queensland, Brisbane, QLD, 4072, Australia.
authors.forename: Zhongfan
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Jia
authors.affiliation: Australian Institute for Bioengineering and Nanotechnology, The University of Queensland, Brisbane, QLD, 4072, Australia.
authors.forename: Michael J
authors.initials: MJ
authors.lastname: Monteiro
mesh_terms: D053758:Nanoparticles; D013696:Temperature; D014867:Water / Q000737:chemistry*
chemical_list: D014867:Water
keywords: 4-arm stars; RAFT; emulsion polymerization; polystyrene