One-pot Method of Immobilization of Initiator on Carbon Hard Spheres for Surface-Initiated Atom Transfer Radical Polymerization

摘要

Carbon hard spheres (CHSs) are versatile alternative to metallic or metallic oxide nanoparticles because of their special character, their specific electronic properties, and their cost-efficient synthesis. Recent optimization has enabled the synthesis of CHSs on a large scale via a hydrothermal carbonization (HTC) process. The CHSs show promise as reinforcing agents in light weight composite. However CHSs’ incompatibility with most common solvents and bulk polymers results in unstable suspensions. By the surface modification of nanoparticles their surface properties can be tailored to increase the applications of CHSs. The most important route for improving the compatibility of CHSs is their functionalization with grafted polymer chains by surface-initiated controlled polymerization techniques (SI-CRP). Among various SI-CRP, surface-initiated atom transfer radical polymerization (SI-ATRP) has been used extensively to produce polymer brushes.1 To enable SI-ATRP on CHSs the immobilization of initiating sites on their surfaces is usually achieved by multiple steps. A radical fixation route is particularly attractive means for immobilization of initiators onto CHSs. Herein, we use the advantage of the radical-trapping ability of the CHSs’ surface to immobilize the initiator groups. We developed one step method for covalent immobilization of ATRP initiator with benzyl bromide moieties on CHSs. These initiator immobilized CHSs could be used to graft polymer chains via SI-TARP.