Polymerization of Di(ethylene glycol) 2- Ethyl Hexyl Ether Acrylate via Reversible Addition-Fragmentation Chain Transfer Polymerization

摘要

The advent of living radical polymerization (LRP) processes have extended the scope of synthetic polymer chemistry by allowing the preparation of well-defined macromolecules of different architectures with predetermined molecular weights and narrow polydispersity indices. The ability to reinitiate polymerizations, thereby permitting facile preparation of block copolymers, is one of the key advantages of LRP. Reversible addition fragmentation and chain transfer (RAFT), a polymerization methodology, first reported by the CSIRO group has emerged as one of the major LRP processes. Owing to its tolerance to a wide variety of functional groups, RAFT has been employed to polymerize numerous monomers. Thus, it is highly desirable to further extend the application of RAFT to polymerize new functional monomers. Here we report the RAFT polymerization of di(ethylene glycol)-2- ethyl hexyl ether acrylate (DEHEA), a unique monomer with an amphiphilic side chain. Due to its low T_g, poly(di(ethylene glycol)-2- ethyl hexyl ether acrylate) (PDEHEA) behaves like a viscous fluid at ambient temperatures. Amphiphilic block copolymers containing PDEHEA will also be of specific interest to our laboratory to further expand the scope of nanostructures with low-T_g segments, complementing our work on polyisoprene containing nanostructures.