Huang, ZhangjunVan Sittert, Cornelia Gertina Catharina ElizabethZheng, FengChen, ShuangshuangLu, XueminLu, Qinghua2017-04-182017-04-182016Huang, Z. et al. 2016. A strategy for the synthesis of cyclomatrix-polyphosphazene nanoparticles from non-aromatic monomers. RSC advances, 6(79): 75552-75561. [http://pubs.rsc.org/en/journals/journalissues/ra]2046-2069 (Online)http://hdl.handle.net/10394/21433http://dx.doi.org/10.1039/C6RA13486Fhttp://pubs.rsc.org/en/content/articlelanding/2016/ra/c6ra13486fCyclomatrix-polyphosphazenes (C-PPZs) are a new class of nanomaterials that have attracted significant interest owing to their unique inorganic–organic hybrid structure and tunable properties. The limited success that has been achieved in producing C-PPZs from non-aromatic organic monomers is ascribed to an insufficient understanding of their polymerization mechanism. In this work, by using a new strategy termed solubility-parameter-triggered polycondensation, we demonstrate experimentally and computationally that C-PPZs nanoparticle synthesis from non-aromatic monomers is feasible and solubility-parameter (SP)-dependent. The precipitation polycondensation of C-PPZ occurs once the solution SP is outside a critical SP range, while within the critical range only oligomers are detected from the reaction; this SP-dependent rule is applicable for C-PPZ oligomers from both aromatic and non-aromatic monomers. The upper/lower critical SP values increase with the increase of organic monomer hydrophilicity. The morphologies of C-PPZ products exist as clusters or nanoparticles when the reaction solvent SP is controlled below the upper critical SP or exceeds the lower critical SP, respectively. This theory presents a feasible way to predict and determine the precipitation polycondensation conditions and product morphology of any novel C-PPZ nanomaterialenArticle