Click-Chemistry Of Polymersomes On Nanoporous Polymeric Surfaces

A facile click chemistry method of immobilizing surface-functionalized polymer vesicles on casted polymeric PAN substrates is described. Microporous PAN membranes were subjected to hydrochloric acid hydrolysis to obtain surface carboxylates. The carboxylic groups were activated with EDC/NHS-solution and were then reacted with propargylamine to introduce alkyne groups for CuAAC reactions. The alkyne functionality of the modified membrane surface was verified by reaction with an azide functional click dye both before and after the immobilization of azide-functionalized ABA vesicles. The efficient postfunctionalization of the membrane with alkyne allowed quantitative coverage of the membrane surface with a polymersome monolayer, as confirmed by immobilization of polymerzomes loaded with a fluorescent dye. Polymersome monolayers immobilized on alkyne functionalized PAN-membranes were characterized by cryo-SEM and monolayers were confirmed by atom force microscopy. These methods opens up new avenues for preparing membrane based filtration and sensor technologies. (C) 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.