Controlled multi-vinyl monomerhomopolymerization through vinyl oligomercombination as a universal approach tohyperbranched architectures

摘要

The three-dimensional structures of hyperbranched materials have made them attractive inmany important applications. However, the preparation of hyperbranched materials remainschallenging. The hyperbranched materials from addition polymerization have gained attention,but are still confined to only a low level of branching and often low yield. Moreover, thecomplication of synthesis only allows a few specialized monomers and inimers to be used.Here we report a ‘Vinyl Oligomer Combination’ strategy; a versatile approach that overcomesthese difficulties and allows facile synthesis of highly branched polymeric materials fromreadily available multi-vinyl monomers, which have long been considered as formidablestarting materials in addition polymerization. We report the alteration of the growth mannerof polymerization by controlling the kinetic chain length, together with the manipulation ofchain growth conditions, to achieve veritable hyperbranched materials, which possess nearly70% branch ratios as well as numerous vinyl functional groups.