Patent ID: 8584871

Claim:
A process comprising: providing a solution of a self-assembling material and a solvent; feeding the solution into an electrospinning device; and applying a voltage to the device such that the solution of the self-assembling material and the solvent is drawn and a jet is formed from which the solvent dissipates to provide fibers of the self-assembling material, wherein the self-assembling material of the fibers comprises oligomers or polymers comprising a supramolecular structure, the oligomers and polymers having repeat units that contain functional groups having directional interactions that are (a) electrostatic interactions (ion-ion, ion-dipole or dipole-dipole) or coordinative bonding (metal-ligand), (b) hydrogen bonding, (c) π-π stacking interactions, or (d) van der Waals forces, or a combination thereof, the supramolecular structure being formed upon a triggering event; and the number average molecular weight (M n ) of the self assembling material is between 5,000 grams per mole (g/mol) and 18,000 g/mol as measured by proton nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy ( 1 H-NMR); wherein the self-assembling material comprises one or more x units and one or more y units: wherein: and wherein R at each occurrence is independently a C 2 -C 12 alkylene, a heteroalkylene of 2 to 12 backbone atoms, C 3 -C 7 cycloalkyl, -alkylene-cycloalkyl-, -alkylene-cycloalkyl-alkylene-, -heteroalkylene-cycloalkyl-, -heteroalkylene-cycloalkyl-heteroalkylene-, a polyether chain [(CH 2 ) n —O-] m where m and n are independently integers; R′ and R″ at each occurrence are independently a covalent bond, an aliphatic group having 2-6 carbon atoms, C 3 -C 7 cycloalkyl, -alkylene-cycloalkyl-, or -alkylene-cycloalkyl-alkylene-; R 2 at each occurrence is H; Ra is an alkylene group of 2-6 carbon atoms, C 3 -C 7 cycloalkyl, -alkylene-cycloalkyl-, or -alkylene-cycloalkyl-alkylene, or the —N(R 2 )—Ra—N(R 2 )— moiety is piperazinyl; and x represents the number of ester units and y represents the number of amide units in the copolymer, provided that neither x nor y is zero.