Block Copolymers of Poly(2-oxazoline)s and Poly(meth)acrylates: A Crossover between Cationic Ring-Opening Polymerization (CROP) and Reversible Addition-Fragmentation Chain Transfer (RAFT)

Andreas Krieg; Christine Weber; Richard Hoogenboom; C Remzi Becer; Ulrich S Schubert

doi:10.1021/mz300128p

Block Copolymers of Poly(2-oxazoline)s and Poly(meth)acrylates: A Crossover between Cationic Ring-Opening Polymerization (CROP) and Reversible Addition-Fragmentation Chain Transfer (RAFT)

ACS Macro Lett. 2012 Jun 19;1(6):776-779. doi: 10.1021/mz300128p. Epub 2012 Jun 8.

Authors

Andreas Krieg^{1

2

3}, Christine Weber^{1

2

3}, Richard Hoogenboom⁴, C Remzi Becer⁵, Ulrich S Schubert^{1

2

3}

Affiliations

¹ Laboratory of Organic and Macromolecular Chemistry (IOMC), Friedrich Schiller University of Jena, Humboldtstr. 10, 07743, Jena, Germany.
² Jena Center for Soft Matter (JCSM), Friedrich Schiller University of Jena, Humboldtstr. 10, 07743, Jena, Germany.
³ Dutch Polymer Institute (DPI), John F. Kennedylaan 2, 5612AB, Eindhoven, The Netherlands.
⁴ Supramolecular Chemistry Group, Department of Organic Chemistry, Ghent University, Krijgslaan 281 S4, B-9000, Ghent, Belgium.
⁵ Department of Chemistry, University of Warwick, Coventry CV4 7AL, United Kingdom.

PMID: 35607103
DOI: 10.1021/mz300128p

Abstract

To combine the advantages of poly(2-oxazoline)s (POx) and controlled radical polymerization (CRP) techniques, the cationic ring-opening polymerization (CROP) of 2-methyl-2-oxazoline (MeOx), 2-ethyl-2-oxazoline (EtOx), and 2-n-nonyl-2-oxazoline (NonOx) were terminated with a carboxylic acid functionalized chain transfer agent (CTA). The obtained PEtOx with a high degree of functionalization (DF) was used as macro-CTA for the reversible addition-fragmentation chain transfer (RAFT) polymerization of various vinylic monomers (styrene (St), methyl acrylate (MA), tert-butyl acrylate (tBuA), acrylic acid (AA), N,N-dimethyl acrylamide (DMAAm), and N,N-dimethylaminoethylacrylate (DMAEA)) resulting in well-defined block copolymers. Thus, in this work we report a versatile route to combine poly(2-oxazoline)s prepared via CROP with RAFT polymerization for the synthesis of novel block copolymers.