New thermo-sensitive reactive polyethers basing on glycidol

摘要

The article summarizes the present research works of authors on application of glycidol [(2,3-epoxypropanol-1), see equation (1)] to obtain the reactive amphiphilic polyethers showing the lower critical solution temperature (LCST) in aqueous solutions. The conditions of the syntheses of linear and comb-like glycidol homopolymers [equations (2)-(5)] have been discussed. Two basic methods of the synthesis of the polymers with controlled ratio of hydrophilic and hydrophobic segments were presented. The first one is an esterification of glycidol homopolymer with acetic anhydride [equation (7)] and leads to random thermo-sensitive copolymers of glycidol with glycidol acetate (Table 2). The other method let obtain, in the process of anionic living copolymerization, triblock copolymers containing the central hydrophilic block of polyethylene oxide (PEOX) and two hydrophobic side blocks of polyglycidol acetal (PAGI) [equation (8), Table 3]. The effect of EOX/AGI ratio on LCST value (Fig. 1) of these thermo-sensitive products was investigated for two series of block copolymers differing with molar masses of particular blocks.