Dear Colleagues,

Molecular brushes (aka bottlebrushes) represent a particular class of regularly branched macromolecules in which multiple side chains are attached to a long main chain (backbone) with high grafting density. Although all major synthetic strategies towards molecular brushes (“grafting to”, “grafting from”, “grafting through”) were elaborated a few decades ago, and properties of brush-like macromolecules in melts and solutions have been extensively studied, interest in the polymeric materials that compose the molecular brushes has recently increased quite significantly.

Contemporary synthetic approaches enable perfectly controlled variations in the basic architectural parameters of molecular brushes (degrees of polymerization of the main and side chains, grafting density). As a result, the paradigm of encoding the structural and rheological properties of polymeric materials through the control of the macromolecular architecture of bottlebrush components has emerged. Moreover, the mechanical properties of crosslinked elastomers and swelling gels with bottlebrushes as elementary strands can be adjusted to mimic, for example, the elasticity of living tissues.

Block copolymers comprising two or more chemically different (incompatible) bottlebrush blocks demonstrate self-assembly capability in the melt state or in selective solvent, giving rise to nanostructures, mesophases, or swollen mesogels with structural, mechanical, and optical properties controlled by tuning the set of architectural parameters of constituent bottlebrush blocks.

Despite remarkable recent advances in the experimental and theoretical research of solutions, melts, nanostructured materials, and elastomers constituting molecular brushes, our knowledge in this domain is still far from comprehensive. This is clearly indicated by the dramatic increase in the number of relevant publications in the field.

This Special Issue aims to attract research articles focused on synthetic and experimental studies, as well as theory and computer simulations of the solution and bulk properties of bottlebrush (co)polymers with major emphasis on the enlarged spectrum of molecular architectures (including barbwire brushes, dendronized polymers, etc.), and further progress towards understanding systematic relations between the architecture of the bottlebrushes on one hand, and the structural, rheological, and mechanical properties of their solutions, bulk materials, and elastomers on the other. 

Prof. Dr. Oleg V. Borisov
Prof. Dr. Ekaterina B. Zhulina
Guest Editor

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• molecular brushes
• comblike polymers
• hierarchically branched macromolecules
• bottlebrush block copolymers
• self-assembly
• mesogels
• tissue-mimicking materials