Preparation of Polyrotaxane Fibers. Part I: Influence of Dope Solvents on the Physical Properties of Wet-spun Polyrotaxane Fibers

Recent developments in supramolecular chemistry, such as the construction of molecules with constructing components topologically interlocked by non-covalent interactions, have attracted interest in a wide range of fields in polymer science and nano technology [1–5]. Typical candidates for supramol-ecules include (poly)rotaxane, (poly)catenan, and callixal-lene [1]. One of the most widely investigated of these molecules is polyrotaxane, which contains many rings pen-etrated by an axis carrying two bulky end groups that pre-vents “dethreading ” of the rings [2–5]. Harada et al. [6] and Wenz [7] conducted a series of pioneering studies on spontaneous inclusion complexation between a linear syn-thetic polymer, such as poly(ethylene glycol) (PEG), and cyclodextrins (CDs), cyclic oligosaccharides of α–D–glu-cose [8], which have contributed to the development of fac