Since the discovery of their synthesis over 50 years ago, polyolefins have become one of the most important classes of materials across nearly all aspects of society. As this area of research continues to grow, suitable reference materials to assist in the characterization of new, complex polymers are necessary. In this work, we have explored the use of ring-opening metathesis polymerization of highly strained cyclic olefins as a way to prepare model polyolefins with a high degree of control over both the molar mass distribution and short-chain branching in an effort to build a foundation for the preparation of short-chain branched polyethylene standards. Furthermore, we have employed high temperature gel permeation chromatography to characterize the resulting materials using infrared, refractive index, viscometric, and multi-angle light scattering detection in order to measure molar mass, confirm material homogeneity, and determine the branching distribution relative to linear analogs of comparable molar mass and dispersity. These materials are foundational to building advanced standard libraries to measure the effects of branch length, branch frequency, and molar mass dependence on polymer solution thermodynamics in order to accurately determine these parameters in materials with unknown degrees of long and short chain branching.

Towards next generation polyolefin standards: Controlled synthesis of short-chain branched polyethylene <i>via</i> ring-opening metathesis polymerization

255th National Meeting (2018)

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Towards next generation polyolefin standards: Controlled synthesis of short-chain branched polyethylene via ring-opening metathesis polymerization