The radical copolymerization of electron donor-type monomers (styrene) with electron acceptors (maleic anhydride) permits the design of almost perfectly alternating copolymers due to low propagation rate coefficient (kp) compared to high cross-propagation rate coefficient (kcp). This exceptional feature has been used to achieve sequence-controlled alternating copolymers, polymer end-chain functionalization and single monomer unit insertion. Here we present our use of sequential single monomer unit insertion and chain extension in a one-pot RAFT copolymerization process to produce multisite copolymer with functionalizable units (maleic anhydride) inserted at precise locations in the polymer chain. A well-defined polystyrene backbone (c.a. 5,700 g mol-1 – Dispersity = 1.4) with four functionalizable areas (every 10 units on average) was achieved and subsequent esterification of the maleic anhydride units with aliphatic alcohols was performed in order to prepare well-defined branched architectures.

Well-defined grafted copolymers using single unit insertion and chain extension by RAFT

254th National Meeting (2017)

The official archive and repository for all ACS Meetings & Expositions abstracts and select posters or presentations.