Supporting Information

The Behavior of Poly(ɛ-caprolactone) and Poly(ethylene oxide)-b-Poly(ɛ-caprolactone) Grafted to a Poly(glycerol adipate) Backbone at the Air/Water Interface

Toufik Naolou, Karsten Busse, Bob-Dan Lechner, and Jörg Kressler*

Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg, Department of Chemistry, D-06099 Halle (Saale), Germany


Scheme S1 (A) Enzymatic synthesis of PGA, (B) Ring opening polymerization of ε-caprolactone at 80°C using OH of PGA,(C)Esterification reaction to prepare PGA-g-(PCL-alkyne), (D) CuAAC to obtain PGA-g-(PCL-b-PEO).


Scheme S2.Synthesis of PCL-b-PEO.(A) Synthesis of alkyne-PCL by ring opening polymerization in the presence of tin octoate at 100°C. (B) Coupling reaction using CuAAC.

Fig S1. Comparison between the compressionisotherms of PCL16, PCL25, PGA17-g-PCL15, PGA17-g-PCL24.

AFM data

The phase image of PGA17-g-PCL24 (Figure S2, left) shows the differences in material softness. The discs appear to be much softer than the inter-disc area, which might consist of the silicon substrate and some amorphous PGA17-g-PCL24 material. The filaments appear to be stiffer as well but this is mainly due to the difference in height compared to the rather flat surrounding disc. This is supported by the fact, that the difference in phase contrast is only clear at the left side of the filament. For PGA17-g-(PCL24–b–PEO44), the phase images show only a small contrast between the fiber-like structures and the surrounding.

Fig S2. Phase imagesfrom LB films of PGA17-g-PCL24 (left) and PGA17-g-(PCL24–b–PEO44) (right). The images are related to LB films shown in the Figure 7 and Figure 8aof the article.

A more detailed height analysis shows that there are two populations of height about 7.0 nm (FWHH = 2.2 nm) and 15.1 nm (FWHH = 2.5 nm) for PGA17-g-PCL24 and 7.7 nm (FWHH = 2.0 nm) and 14.1 nm (FWHH = 2.5 nm) for PGA17-g-(PCL24–b–PEO44), respectively.The histogram analysis shows that each population is rather broad spread, so the heights measured from cross sections in the article fit perfectly into the height distribution determined by means of this bearing analysis (see full width half height (FWHH) values of the populations given in brackets) [1, 2].

Fig S3. AFM height images (top) and height histograms (bottom) from LB films of PGA17-g-PCL24 (left) and PGA17-g-(PCL24–b–PEO44) (right). The height images are taken from the article (Figure 7 and Figure 8b). The histograms show data from the marked sections (boxes).

References

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2. Yao S, Jiao K, Zhang K, et al. (2011) An atomic force microscopy study of coal nanopore structure. Chinese Sci Bull 56:2706–2712. doi: 10.1007/s11434-011-4623-8