Multireactive Poly(2-oxazoline) Nanofibers through Electrospinning with Crosslinking on the Fly

Crosslinked hydrophilic poly(2-oxazoline)-based nanofibers amenable to facile multi-functionalization are fabricated using alkene-containing poly(2-alkyl-2-oxazoline)s (PAOx) via in situ photo-initiated radical thiol-ene conjugation during electrospinning. The resulting crosslinked nanofibers are demonstrated to be multi-functionalizable using different chemistries as they contain two functional handles, being the alkene moieties from the parent copolymer and the residual thiol groups from the tetra-thiol based crosslinker. While the thiol groups in these nanofibers could be passivated or conjugated to install functional molecules through thiol-maleimide conjugation, the alkene groups could sequentially be modified with thiol-containing molecules using photo-initiated radical thiol-ene reactions. Utilization of the photochemically induced conjugation of thiol-bearing molecules to the alkene groups on the nanofibers is used to obtain functionalization in a spatially controlled manner