Effects of stereochemistry and copolymerization on the LCST of PNIPAm

Poly(N-isopropylacrylamide) (PNIPAm) is a smart polymer that presents a lower critical transition temperature (LCST) of 305 K. Interestingly, this transition point falls within the range of the human body temperature, making PNIPAm a highly suitable candidate for bio-medical applications. However, it is sometimes desirable to have a rather flexible tuning of the LCST of these polymers to further increase their range of applications. In this work, we use all-atom molecular dynamics simulations to study the LCST of PNIPAm-based (co-)polymers. We study different molecular architectures where the polymer sequences are tuned either by modifying its stereochemistry or by the co-polymerization of PNIPAm with acrylamide (Am) units. Our analysis connects global polymer conformations with the microscopic intermolecular interactions. These findings suggest that the collapse of a PNIPAm chain upon heating is dependent on the hydration structure around the monomers, which is strongly dependent on the tacticity and the presence of more hydrophilic acrylamide monomers. Our results are found to be in good agreement with the existing experimental data.