The amphiphilic multiarm copolymers were synthesized through the modification of commercially available hyperbranched polyesters（Boltorn H40） with N-ε-carbobenzoxy-L-Lysine N-carboxyanhydride（ZLys-NCA）.After being condensed with N-Boc-phenylalanine（Boc-^NPhe） and deprotected the Boc-groups in trifluoroacetic acid（TFA）,the original terminal hydroxyl groups were transformed into the amino groups and then initiated the ring-opening polymerization of ZLys-NCA.The hydrophilic poly（L-lysine） was grafted to the surface of Boltorn H40 successfully after the protecting benzyl groups were removed by the HBr solution in glacial acetic acid（33 wt%）.The resulting multiarm copolymers were characterized by the ^1H-NMR,GPC and FTIR.The arm length calculated by NMR and GPC analysis was about 3 and 13 lysine-units for H40-Phe-PLysl and H40-Phe-PLys2 respectively.Due to the amphiphilic molecular structure,they displayed ability to self-assemble into spherical micelles in aqueous solution with the average diameter in the range from 70 nm to 250 nm.The CMC of H40-Phe-PLysl and H40-Phe-PLys2 was 0.013 mg/mL and 0.028 mg/mL,respectively, indicating that H40-Phe-PLysl with shorter arm length is easier to self-assemble than H40-Phe-PLys2 with longer arm length.
Two highly soluble aromatic polyimides were synthesized successfully from a diamine with two tert-butyl groups （MBTBA） and dianhydrides with a thioether or sulfone moiety （DTDA and DSDA）. Both of them showed excellent solubility in common solvents such as chloroform, tetrahydrofuran and dioxane at the room temperature. The numberaverage molecular weight was 6.0× 10^4 and 8.3 ×10^4 according to gel permeation chromatography relative to a polystyrene standard, and the polydispersity index was 1.80 and 1.82 respectively. The glass-transition temperatures of them were 286℃ and 314℃ （or 315℃ and 358℃） respectively, as measured by differential scanning calorimetry （or dynamic mechanical analysis）. The 5% weight loss temperature of both was near 490℃ in N2 by therrnogravimetric analysis. These results indicated that the tert-butyl pendent groups reduced the interactions among polymer chains and the thioether or sulfone moiety was flexible which may improve their solubility in conventional organic solvents without the loss of thermal stability. Transparent and flexible films of the two polyimides were obtained via solution casting. The MBTBA-DTDA membrane had higher storage moduli than those of the MBTBA-DSDA membrane.
