Carborane-Containing Polymer Nanoparticles via Light-Mediated Polymerization-Induced Self-Assembly

Carboranes are an important class of icosahedral carbon–boron clusters that have been intensively studied in the fields of medicinal, organometallic, and materials chemistry. In recent years, there have been efforts to incorporate carboranes into block copolymers to explore their biomedical applications. Few studies have used reversible deactivation radical polymerization processes to synthesize carborane-based polymers. In this work, we report the synthesis of a series of well-defined poly[oligo(ethylene glycol) methyl ether methacrylate]-block-poly(closo-1,2-carboranylethyl methacrylate) (POEGMA-b-PCbEMA) block copolymers by means of a photomediated reversible addition–fragmentation chain transfer (RAFT) polymerization and report the formation of nanoparticles of various morphologies through polymerization-induced self-assembly. Various parameters including the temperature, irradiation source, degree of polymerization of the core-forming block, and solid and water contents were found to have an impact on the polymerization process and the final morphologies.