Cellulose modifications are an intensive field of research. When attaching polymers on cellulose, so far the emphasis has been on grafting chains to and from the cellulose backbone. However,  linear block copolymers that include cellulose and a synthetic block in the backbone, have received relatively little attention. Such block copolymers should possess interesting properties because of the peculiar chemical nature of cellulose. In this study, the fundamental phase separation properties were investigated on a 2D surface.The cellulose block copolymers were synthetized in two different manners: Either by transforming the reducing end of the cellulose into an ATRP �macroinitiator or by attaching a prefabricated polystyrene homopolymer with reductive amination to the cellulose reducing end-group.  The homopolymers were synthetized by controlled radical polymerization (ATRP or RAFT) and the end-group was transformed into an amine. Using the reducing end-moiety of the cellulose also enabled the use of dissolved cellulose instead of cellulose derivatives.

Block copolymers incorporating cellulose or cellulose derivatives

247th National Meeting (2014)

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