Novel amphiphilic graft copolymers bearing hydrophilic poly(acrylic acid) backbones and hydrophobic poly(butyl methacrylate) side chains

Abstract

A novel amphiphilic graft copolymer consisting of hydrophilic poly(acrylic acid) backbones and hydrophobic poly(butyl methacrylate) side chains was synthesized by successive atom transfer radical polymerization followed by hydrolysis of poly‐(methoxymethyl acrylate) backbone. A grafting‐from strategy was employed for the synthesis of graft copolymers with narrow molecular weight distributions (polydispersity index < 1.40). Hydrophobic side chains were connected to the backbone through stable CC bonds instead of ester connections. Poly(methoxymethyl acrylate) backbone was easily hydrolyzed to poly(acrylic acid) backbone with HCl without affecting the hydrophobic side chains. The amphiphilic graft copolymer could form stable micelles in water. The critical micelle concentration in water was determined by a fluorescence probe technique. The morphology of the micelles was preliminarily explored with transmission electron microscopy and was found to be spheres. © 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Polym Sci Part A: Polym Chem 44: 6857–6868, 2006

Synthesis and characterization of amphiphilic graft copolymers with hydrophilic poly(acrylic acid) backbone and hydrophobic poly(methyl methacrylate) side chains

“…To retain the ester groups on the backbone so that they can be hydrolyzed to the hydrophilic carboxylic groups, a novel method was developed by our group to connect ATRP initiation groups to the a-carbon of the ester groups using LDA and a-bromoisobutyryl bromide [19,20]. Ester groups of PMOMA backbone and CeBr groups of ATRP initiation groups were supposed to experience no affection, as evidenced from the previous literature [23] (Scheme 3).…”

Methods of controlled radical polymerization for the synthesis of polymer brushes

“…Of interest is the series of papers [104][105][106][107][108][109] devoted to the synthesis of brushes with a hydrophilic backbone (poly(acrylic acid) and hydrophobic side chains [poly(methyl methacrylate) [104,108], poly(n butyl methacrylate) [105], polystyrene [106,107], and poly(vinyl acetate) [109]). The scheme of synthesis of brushes with a hydrophilic backbone of poly(acrylic acid) and side chains of poly(n butyl methacrylate) applied in [104][105][106][107][108] Poly(methoxymethyl acrylate)-a precursor of poly(acrylic acid)-was synthesized for further use as a backbone.…”

“…The scheme of synthesis of brushes with a hydrophilic backbone of poly(acrylic acid) and side chains of poly(n butyl methacrylate) applied in [104][105][106][107][108] Poly(methoxymethyl acrylate)-a precursor of poly(acrylic acid)-was synthesized for further use as a backbone. This polymer was lithiated at the α carbon atom of the main polymer chain by lithium isopropyla mide in THF and then modified at the α carbon atom with 2 Br isobutyroyl (or 2 Br propionyl) bromide.…”

PAA‐g‐PVAc Amphiphilic Graft Copolymer Synthesized by Atom Transfer Radical Polymerization

“…7,[10][11][12] The structure of the hydrolyzed product was characterized by 1 H NMR and FT-IR. The disappearance of the signals of the methoxymethyl protons at δ 3.46 and 5.23 in 1 H NMR spectrum ( Figure 3B) ensured the complete hydrolysis of the PMOMA backbone.…”

“…Atom transfer radical polymerization of MOMA was initiated by 2-MBP in bulk according to previous literatures. 7,[10][11][12] Homopolymer PMOMA (1) with narrow molecular weight distribution (M w /M n ＝1.09) was obtained via ATRP at 50 ℃. From the result of GPC (M n ＝5,800), it was calculated that every chain has about 50 MOMA repeating units.…”