温度敏感树形聚合物结合了温敏聚合物对温度具有响应行为的特点以及树形聚合物非线形构造的方式、大尺度、结构易于调节和功能化等特征,在智能材料和生物医药等领域有着重要的研究价值和应用前景。此类聚合物可以通过在树形聚合物表面引入温敏基元、控制聚合物结构的亲疏水比例以及采用温敏基元直接构筑聚合物等方式形成,其温敏性可以通过调控聚合物内部或外部基团的亲疏水性、树枝化基元代数、树形构造方式等得以实现与控制。此外,树形聚合物独特的拓扑结构赋予其与线形聚合物不同的温敏行为及脱水机理。本文综述了包括温敏树枝状大分子、温敏树枝化聚合物、温敏超支化聚合物等不同类型温敏树形聚合物近年来的研究进展,重点介绍这些聚合物的合成方法、温敏行为和拓扑结构对温敏行为的影响,以及在纳米材料、生物医用、分子传感器等方面的应用研究。
Thermoresponsive dendritic polymers combine the "smart" property of thermoresponsive polymers and the nano-sized, tunable non-linear architectures of dendritic polymers, which have been found applications from materials science to biology. Recent research progresses on thermoresponsive dendritic polymers including dendrimers, dendronized polymers and hyperbranehed polymers are reviewed. In contrast to their linear counterparts, the thermoresponsive behavior of these dendritic polymers can be influenced by the dendritic architecture, which paved a way to fabricate molecule-based nano-devices for encapsulation and recognition. Their synthetic methodology, structural-related thermoresponsive behavior as well as their applications in nanomaterials, sensors and biomaterials are described in details.