NQR-CR polymers characterised

Immobilisation of the most promising candidates from WP3 in terms of NQR frequencies onto PEG differing in molecular weight and the degree of branching. The immobilisation will be performed by reacting the Bi compounds bearing a functional spacer group (e.g. carboxylic groups) with the polymers. For example, carbodiimide chemistry is a well-known procedure for coupling OH with COOH groups in a very efficient way, and several literature procedures are known. Purification (e.g. dialysis) of the polymers and nanoprecipitation under sonication conditions to create nano- and micro-particles with defined sizes according to the guidelines WP2 from UWM and UU. The sizes will be varied over two orders of magnitudes in order to explore the influence on relaxivity. Characterisation of the NPs by state of the art techniques (Infrared spectroscopy, SWAXS, TEM, dynamic light scattering, zeta potential, ZF-NQRS, fast field cycling relaxometry).