Understanding how polymers react to mechanical force is the objective of polymer mechanochemistry, a burgeoning field of polymer science. In particular, there has been much research examining the behavior of polymer chains under ultrasonication. However, the great majority of the literature on the topic focuses on homopolymers, due to the difficulties in assigning the backbone scission site in copolymer systems. This work aims to elucidate the behavior of block copolymers under sonication using a bifunctional mechano(chromo)phore, where two blocks can be grown on either side by orthogonal methods (e.g. reversible addition-fragmentation chain transfer and atom transfer radical polymerization). By controlling the length of the polymers flanking the mechanophore, an anthracene-maleimide adduct which serves as an optical probe upon cycloreversion, one can evaluate the important parameters that govern chain scission in block copolymer sonochemistry. The influence of the polymer architecture on the chain scission location and kinetics was examined by combining GPC and optical characterization. These polymers may be ultimately useful in the bulk to fabricate novel mechanoresponsive solids with enhanced response.

Connecting block copolymers with scissile mechanophores

255th National Meeting (2018)

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