Another promising application of Apeiron’s catalyst – AquaMet published in “Polymers”
The research presented in the article “Optimization of Ring-Opening Metathesis Polymerization (ROMP) under Physiologically Relevant Conditions” aimed to improve a ROMP methodology for applying it to the synthesis of cell- and protein-polymer conjugates for novel therapeutic biologics. The authors have described Ring-Opening Metathesis Polymerization (ROMP) under aqueous and physiological conditions as an attractive, improving sustainability and minimizing environmental impact technology, suitable for novel biological transformations. Church and coworkers chose to use our commercially available, well-defined for precise catalyst loading, water-soluble catalyst – AquaMet, and have made efforts to optimize variables such as chloride concentration and pH to enhance the efficiency of ROMP in neat water.
This work have proved that efficient polymerization in aqueous media, with fast initiation and high monomer conversion is achievable even at room temperature, near physiologically relevant pH and without the use of organic co-solvents.
Furthermore, the authors have demonstrated that the addition of chloride in solution has a profound effect on polymerization in an aqueous environment, ensuring high monomer conversion and well-controlled molecular weight of polymers.
We hope that these conclusions will prove to be a significant step towards utilizing the aqueous ROMP under biological conditions in the presence of structures such as cells, proteins, peptides or acid-sensitive functional groups.
If you would like to find out more details about the results of this study, please visit:
https://pubs.rsc.org/en/content/articlelanding/2020/PY/D0PY00716A#!divAbstract
