LAUSR

Functional polyesters and poly(carbonate)s (PCs) with controlled and on-demand degradation properties have great advantages for biomedical and pharmaceutical applications. Herein, we report a new kind of aliphatic PC that possesses the feature of oxidation promoted degradation. Two six-membered cyclic carbonates (C1 and C2) containing phenylboronic ester group have been synthesized from serinol (1) and 2-aminomethyl-2-methylpropane-1,3-diol (2), respectively. Both monomers could undergo well-controlled ring-opening polymerization (ROP) catalyzed by an organic base, but the 5,5-disubstituted C2 has the character of equilibrium ROP and a much slower rate than the monosubstituted C1. The copolymerization of C1 or C2 with trimethylene carbonate and its derivative leads to a series of copolymers. Two series of amphiphilic block copolymers (BPC1s and BPC2s) have been prepared from C1 and C2 using poly(ethylene glycol) as the macroinitiator. They are able to form nanoparticles with the diameters less than 150 nm...