Semiautomated synthesis of sequence-defined polymers for information storage.
basic_science · Level V
Where this comes from
- Record sourced from PubMed, PMID 35275723.
- Also identified by DOI 10.1126/sciadv.abl8614 and PMC identifier 8916720.
- Licence recorded as CC BY-NC.
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Abstract
Accelerated and parallel synthesis of sequence-defined polymers is an utmost challenge for realizing ultrahigh-density storage of digital information in molecular media. Here, we report step-economical synthesis of sequence-defined poly(l-lactic-<i>co</i>-glycolic acid)s (PLGAs) using continuous flow chemistry. A reactor performed the programmed coupling of the 2-bit storing building blocks to generate a library of their permutations in a single continuous flow, followed by their sequential convergences to a sequence-defined PLGA storing 64 bits in four successive flows. We demonstrate that a bitmap image (896 bits) can be encoded and decoded in 14 PLGAs using only a fraction of the time required for an equivalent synthesis by conventional batch processes. Accelerated synthesis of sequence-defined polymers could also contribute to macromolecular engineering with precision comparable to natural precedents.