The rise of antibiotic-resistant microorganisms has become a critical issue in recent years and has promoted substantial research efforts directed to the development of more effective antimicrobial therapies utilizing different bactericidal mechanisms to neutralize infectious diseases. Modern approaches employ at least two mixed bioactive agents to enhance bactericidal effects. However, the combinations of drugs may not always show a synergistic effect, and further, could also produce adverse effects or stimulate negative outcomes. Therefore, investigations providing insights into the effective utilization of combinations of biocidal agents are of great interest. Sometimes, combination therapy is needed to avoid resistance development in difficult-to-treat infections or biofilm-associated infections treated with common biocides. Thus, this contribution reviews the literature reports discussing the usage of antimicrobial polymers along with nanomaterials or other inhibitors for the development of more potent biocidal therapies.

The use of a new symmetrical trithiocarbonate holding two alkoxyamine moieties (I), was explored in surfactant-free emulsion polymerization of styrene or n-butyl acrylate through reversible addition–fragmentation chain transfer (RAFT). I was revealed as an effective chain transfer agent in the synthesis of well-defined end-functionalized poly(acrylic acid)s (PAA). These macroRAFT agents were further used in water for the preparation of amphiphilic triblock copolymers by polymerization induced self-assembly (PISA). The corresponding final latex particles decorated with alkoxyamine moieties were used to trigger NMP polymerization of sodium 4-styrene sulfonate (SSNa) in water. The thermal activation of the surface alkoxyamine groups which had hitherto been dormant induced the formation of a double hydrophilic corona PAA-b-PSSNa and a sharp reorganization of latex particles.

A new strategy for synthesizing multiblock copolymers comprising polystyrene, polyacrylates, poly(N-isopropylacrylamide), etc. is described. The methodology involves the use of a dialkoxyamine-trithiocarbonate (I) to prepare highly end-functionalized polymers through reversible addition–fragmentation chain transfer (RAFT) polymerization at T = 60–70 °C. Under RAFT conditions, the integrity of the alkoxyamine end-group is preserved and the central trithiocarbonate group remains active for the preparation of triblock copolymers. Either the α,ω-dialkoxyamine homopolymer or triblock copolymers were subsequently chain-extended with styrene using nitroxide-mediated radical polymerization (NMP) at T = 120 °C. At this temperature, a tandem polymerization reaction occurs since the trithiocarbonate unit is activated simultaneously. This approach afforded highly pure multiblock copolymers with a narrow molar mass distribution (Đ = 1.3–1.7), which was assessed by size-exclusion chromatography. The diffusion ordered spectroscopy (DOSY) analysis of multiblock copolymers suggests that samples fit well to a single-population model with no evidence of uncoupled blocks detectable. The effectiveness of I for the preparation of a number of multiblock copolymers was demonstrated.