Aqueous degradability of water-soluble, thioester-containing polyacrylamides with UCST-type behaviour in salt solutions obtained by rROP†

We report the successful synthesis of hydrophilic thioester-containing polyacrylamide copolymers by the RAFT and free-radical copolymerisation of dibenzo[c,e]oxepane-5-thione with either acrylamide or N-isopropylacrylamide. These copolymers efficiently degrade in aqueous solutions of sodium hydroxide, isopropylamine, l-cysteine, and household bleach, reducing the weight-average molecular weight by up to ∼90%.