Coupling click chemistry with ATRP

摘要

The preparation of functional polymer brushes attached to various surfaces may involve difficult-to-synthesise monomers with complex functionality and these monomers may then not be compatible with the polymerisation conditions. The copper-catalysed cycloaddition of azides with alkynes is a so-called 'click' reaction: the reaction is highly selective, efficient and tolerant to a wide range of functional groups present and gives near-quantitative yields. The combination of this click reaction with a controlled radical polymerisation technique, such as atom transfer radical polymerisation (ATRP), provides a powerful strategy to produce polymer brushes with complex functionality. Crucially it has been previously reported that the copper catalyst used in the ATRP reaction does not initiate side reactions with azide groups.