Synthesis of alternating copolymers of N-substituted maleimides with styrene via atom transfer radical polymerization
Synthesis of alternating copolymers of N-substituted maleimides with styrene via atom transfer radical polymerization
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DOI:
10.1021/ma991047b
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发表时间:
2000-01-25
期刊:
影响因子:
5.5
通讯作者:
Li, FM
中科院分区:
文献类型:
--
作者:
Chen, GQ;Wu, ZQ;Li, FM
Introduction. As a novel precision polymerization, atom transfer radical polymerization (ATRP) has received rapidly increased interest recently, since it furnishes control over the resulting polymers, which possess narrower molecular weight distributions. 1, 2 The merit of the ATRP system is that it can be performed by an ordinary radical polymerization procedure. A general ATRP catalyst is composed of a simple alkyl halide as an initiator and a copper (I)-bipyridine complex as a catalyst. The mechanism of ATRP is shown to be a reversible homolytic cleavage of a carbon-halogen bond catalyzed by a transition metal in the form of a complex. Many vinyl monomers were successfully demonstrated by ATRP to be usable for the preparation of traditional homopolymers, random copolymers, block/graft copolymers, and gradient copolymers. In addition, ATRP also shows its potential in the synthesis of a variety of new well-defined macromolecular architectures such as comb, 3 star, and dendritic macromolecules. 4 However, reports on the synthesis of welldefined alternating copolymers via ATRP are scarce. 5 It is well-known that an alternating copolymer can be easily obtained by the copolymerization of an electronrich monomer and an electron-deficient monomer through the formation of charge transfer complexes (CTCs). One of the extensively studied systems is maleic anhydride (MAn) and styrene (St). The polymerization can be initiated by radical initiators such as AIBN or by UV light irradiation, but the polymerization process is uncontrollable. 6, 7 Therefore, whether a controllable alternating copolymerization of CTCs forming a monomer pair takes place by ATRP is of concern. Matyjasewski et al. reported on the copolymerization of donor monomers such as isobutene and vinyl isobutyl ether with acceptor monomers such as butyl acrylate via ATRP, showing that the polymerization was controllable. 8 In this article, the copolymerization of styrene (St) with N-substituted maleimides, ie, N-(2-acetoxyethyl) maleimide (AEMI) and N-phenylmaleimide (PhMI), by ATRP have been reported aiming to evaluate whether the CTCs forming a monomer pair takes place by controllable/“living” copolymerization and whether the resulting copolymers possess the predominantly alternating structure.