Premium
Accelerated Polypeptide Synthesis via N ‐Carboxyanhydride Ring Opening Polymerization in Continuous Flow
Author(s) -
Vrijsen Jeroen Hendrik,
Rasines Mazo Alicia,
Junkers Tanja,
Qiao Greg Guanghua
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
macromolecular rapid communications
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.348
H-Index - 154
eISSN - 1521-3927
pISSN - 1022-1336
DOI - 10.1002/marc.202000071
Subject(s) - polymerization , polymer chemistry , polymer , materials science , ring opening polymerization , flow chemistry , chemistry , amine gas treating , chemical engineering , catalysis , organic chemistry , engineering
In nature, polypeptide‐based materials are ubiquitous, yet their synthetic production is hampered by high cost, limited scalability, and often stringent reaction conditions. Herein an elegant approach is presented for N ‐carboxyanhydride ring opening polymerization (NCA ROP) of Nε ‐benzyloxycarbonyl‐ l ‐lysine (ZLL) and γ‐benzyl‐ l ‐glutamate (BLG) NCA in continuous flow. The polymerization is initiated by primary amine initiators using N,N‐ dimethylformamide (DMF) as solvent. Carrying out the reaction in a silicon microflow reactor speeds up the rate of ROP (92% conversion in 40 min in flow as opposed to 6 h in batch) due to highly efficient permeation of CO 2 through the reactor tubing. The polymerization strategy provides a facile, scale‐up friendly alternative to traditional batch mode polymerization and has the capability of streamlining NCA ROP.