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Depolymerization offers a powerful route for the chemical recycling of vinyl polymers. However, current strategies focus almost exclusively on monomer recovery, which overlooks broader applications and opportunities. Herein, depolymerization-induced morphological transformation (DIMT) is introduced as a modular methodology to control the shape of sterically stabilized diblock copolymer nanoparticles and gain mechanistic insight into morphological transformations that occur during selective degradation of the methacrylic core-forming block. Notably, DIMT results in a sequential evolution in copolymer morphology from vesicles to worms to spheres. Transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and small-angle X-ray scattering (SAXS) studies enabled the construction of a predictive (pseudo)phase diagram. Furthermore, this new approach was also applied to the irreversible degelation of diblock copolymer worm gels, highlighting new opportunities to regulate material properties through depolymerization.
Watuthanthrige et al. (Mon,) studied this question.