CHAPTER 11: Hybrids of Synthetic Polymers and Natural Building Blocks Using Thio‐click
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Published:13 Aug 2013
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Series: Polymer Chemistry Series
M. H. Stenzel, in Thiol‐X Chemistries in Polymer and Materials Science, ed. A. Lowe and C. Bowman, The Royal Society of Chemistry, 2013, pp. 236-258.
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The ability to form hybrid materials from the combination of synthetic polymeric materials and naturally occurring biopolymers is of great interest for numerous reasons. First, the blending of properties that can be achieved in this manner expands the properties that can be achieved from each family of materials by themselves. Secondly, the use of naturally occurring biopolymers is seen to be advantageous in the advent and development of green chemistry. Finally, the combination of synthetic polymers and biopolymers renders materials that possess both synthetic features and conventional control over the molecular structure along with the activity associated with the particular biopolymer used. Here, broadly we discuss several classes of biopolymers for which it is advantageous to create synthetic polymer–biopolymer conjugates. Glycopolymers and peptides are discussed extensively, and other classes of biopolymers such as proteins and DNA are discussed more briefly. For each broad class of biopolymers the utilization of thiol‐X chemistry to form the synthetic material‐biopolymer conjugates is discussed with extensive discussion of thiol‐ene/yne reactions, thio‐halogeno reactions, and thio‐para fluoro reactions. The approaches necessary for achieving the desired conjugate in high yield are given.