Arborescent
Inherent Advantages of Dendrimers
Dendrimers are ideally qualified to meet the demands of 21st century materials technology - they provide an organic platform for building functional materials with an almost unlimited capability for miniaturisation. The macromolecular structure confers various important advantages over polymers, including the following:Modular design and synthesis
The design of dendrimers is very flexible – the different components can be independently tuned to provide a very high degree of design control. The functional unit can be placed at the core, the dendrons, or the surface of the dendrimer, according to the requirements of the overall system.
Monodispersity
The dispersity of a batch of dendrimers is very close to 1 – all the dendrimers are identical to each other – unlike with most polymer syntheses, in which the resulting polymer chains within the film typically vary widely in molecular weight.
Solubility
The surface groups of the dendrimers are readily tuneable. Hence, functionally similar dendrimers can be made highly soluble (load factors of 50% or more, with low viscosity) across a wide range of polar to non-polar solvents.
Large active surface area
Polymer conformation is strongly dependent on processing conditions, to an extent that only a proportion of the active unit may be available on the surface. The rigid construction of dendrimers ensures that the active areas are predictably presented to the surface.
Nanoscopically uniform film forming properties
The excellent solution properties and the mono- dispersity of dendrimers combine to allow the consistent deposition of uniform, neat and blended films, without phase separation.
High functional density
Independently tuneable functional dendrons and cores coupled with large dendrimer active surface areas result in molecular materials with the potential for both a high density of active sites and multifunctional capabilities.
© Arborescent 2004-2006