Nitroxide mediated and atom transfer radical graft polymerization of atactic polymers onto syndiotactic polystyrene

Abstract

'Living' radical graft polymerization was employed to prepare graft copolymers with nitroxidemediated arylated syndiotactic polystyrene as the backbone and polystyrene (PS), poly(p-methylstyrene) (PMS) and poly(methylmethacrylate) (PMMA) as branches. A two-stage process has been developed to synthesize the macroinitiator. First, syndiotactic polystyrene (sPS) was modified by the Friedel-Crafts reaction to introduce chlorine; second, the chlorine groups were converted to nitroxide mediated groups by coupling with 1-hydroxy-2,2,6,6-tetramethyl-1-piperidinyloxy (TEMPO-OH). The resulting macroinitiator (sPSTEMPO) for 'living' free radical polymerization was then heated in the presence of styrene and pmethylstyrene to form graft and block copolymers. We used the obtained copolymer and N-bromosuccinimide as brominating agent to achieve polymers with bromine groups. This brominated copolymer was used as a macroinitiator for polymerizing methyl methacrylate in the presence of the CuBr/bpy catalyst system. The formation of the graft and block copolymers was confirmed by DSC, 1H NMR and FTIR spectroscopy. This approach using macroinitiators is an effective method for the preparation of new materials.