Thermoresponsive Self-assembly and Conformational Changes of Amphiphilic Monodisperse Short Poly(ethylene glycol)s in Water

Abstract

Abstract Physicochemical and supramolecular properties of monodisperse amphiphilic short poly(ethylene glycol)s (PEGs) bearing a phenyl group at the one end are studied to investigate the effects of substitution and length of the PEG unit on these properties. It was found that the aromatic substitution encourages these molecules to adopt gauche conformation at the neighboring ethylene units of PEGs and that the octaethylene glycol derivative revealed more PEG-like thermal response of aggregation than the tetraethylene glycol derivative.