Rheological characterization of double thermo-responsive block copolymer hydrogels

The ability of double thermoresponsive block copolymers to form hydrogels has been thoroughly studied by rheology. These copolymers having two discrete LCSTs were synthesized following a one-pot strategy based on the sequential cobalt mediated radical polymeryzation of N-vinylcaprolactam (NVCL) followed by the copolymerization of N-vinylpyrrolidone (NVP) with the residual NVCL.Moreover, the very efficient cobalt mediated radical coupling of the growing chains was advantageously used to design triblock copolymers with similar morphological characteristics than the diblock copolymers (same external block length, copolymer ratio…) allowing direct comparison between their respective gels to be established. Different parameters have been compared such as the block length and the copolymer concentration. Temperature ramps were first performed to distinguish the different states, i.e., solubilized copolymers (below the two LCSTs), micelles (between the two LCSTs) and precipitated polymers (above the two LCSTs).