Liquid crystalline nanoparticles (LCNs) are nano-objects with non-lamellar internal organisation such as inverse bicontinuous cubic and hexagonal structures (cubosomes and hexosomes). Their curved bilayers arrange in highly organized thermodynamically stable structures in which hydrophobic regions and aqueous channels coexist and can encapsulate and protect both hydrophobic and hydrophilic species. They exhibit an extensive hydrophobic volume and large bilayer-water interfacial area. While lipid cubosomes have been known since the 1990s, the accessible range of structural parameters such as internal water channel diameter is quite limited. This project aims to address this through the preparation of hybrid LCNs incorporating both lipid and polymeric components. Amphiphilic copolymers containing monomers that are designed to be incorporated into the lipid bilayer will be synthesized using RAFT polymerization in a flow reactor. The use of flow chemistry will permit rapid optimization of reaction conditions and the generation of libraries of polymer samples, while reducing batch-to-batch variation. The resulting copolymers will be evaluated for their capacity to stabilize and modulate the structure of LCNs without disrupting their long-range order and periodicity.
The principal activity will be to develop protocols for the synthesis and characterization of copolymers by radical polymerization in a flow reactor. A secondary aspect of the project involves the self-assembly of the polymers into liquid crystal nanoparticles and characterization of the resulting particles.
