Multireactive Poly(2-oxazoline) Nanofibers through Electrospinning with Crosslinking on the Fly

Crosslinked hydrophilic poly(2-oxazoline)-based nanofibers amenable to facile multifunctionalization are fabricated using alkene-containing poly(2-alkyl-2-oxazoline)s (PAOx) via in situ photoinitiated radical thiol-ene crosslinking during electrospinning. The resulting crosslinked nanofibers are demonstrated to be multifunctionalizable using different chemistries as they contain two functional handles, being the alkene moieties from the parent copolymer and the residual thiol groups from the tetra-thiol-based crosslinker. While the thiol groups in these nanofibers could be passivated or conjugated to install functional molecules through thiol-maleimide conjugation, the alkene groups could sequentially be modified with thiol-containing molecules using photoinitiated radical thiol-ene reactions. Utilization of the photochemically induced conjugation of thiol-bearing molecules to the alkene groups on the nanofibers is used to obtain functionalization in a spatially controlled manner.