Reactive Block Copolymer Vesicles with an Epoxy Wall

Recently, block copolymer vesicles have attracted considerable attention because of their properties in encapsulation and release. To explore their applications in biorelated fields, functionalization of the polymer vesicle is necessary. Herein, a reactive unilamellar vesicle is reported by self-assembly of poly(ethylene oxide)-block-poly(glycidyl methacrylate) copolymer (PEO-b-PGMA) in solution. When water was added into the PEO-b-PGMA solution in THF, unilamellar vesicles were produced. If hydrophobic primary amine additives, such as hexamethylenediamine (HDA) and dodecylamine (DA), were introduced during block copolymer assembling, the vesicular morphology remained unchanged; instead, the amines reacted with the epoxys and the vesicles were fixed by cross-linking. Furthermore, when 3-aminopropyl trimethoxysilane (APS) was applied, the organic/inorganic hybrid vesicles were obtained, which were stable against the solvent change. Therefore, this research not only supplies a new way to fix the vesicular morphology but also a reactive vesicle scaffold for introducing functional species.