Aqueous Copper‐Mediated Living Radical Polymerisation of N‐Acryloylmorpholine, SET‐LRP in Water. Issue 10 (7th March 2014)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Anastasaki, Athina; Haddleton, Alice J.; Zhang, Qiang; Simula, Alexandre; Droesbeke, Martijn; Wilson, Paul; Haddleton, David M.
• Is Part Of: Macromolecular rapid communications. Volume 35:Issue 10(2014:May)
• Page Start: 965
• Page End: 970
• Publication Date: 2014-03-07
• Subjects: Macromolecules -- Periodicals; Polymers -- Periodicals; Chemistry -- Periodicals; 547.705
• DOI: 10.1002/marc.201400024
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1022-1336

Abstract

<abstract abstract-type="main" xml:lang="en"> <title> <x xml:space="preserve">Abstract</x> </title> <p>The polymerisation of <italic>N</italic>‐acryloylmorpholine in water is reported utilising Cu(0)‐mediated living radical polymerisation (SET‐LRP). The inherent instability of [Cu^I(Me₆‐Tren)Br] in aqueous solution is exploited via rapid disproportionation to prepare Cu(0) particles and [Cu^II(Me₆‐Tren)Br₂] in situ prior to addition of monomer and initiator. Quantitative conversion is attained within 30 min for various degrees of polymerisation (DP<italic>_n</italic> = 20–640) with SEC showing symmetrical narrow molecular weight distributions (<italic>Đ</italic> &lt; 1.18) in all cases. Optimised conditions are subsequently applied for the preparation of a diblock copolymer poly(NIPAm)‐<italic>b</italic>‐(<italic>N</italic>‐acryloylmorpholine), illustrating the versatility of this approach. <boxed-text content-type="graphic" position="anchor" orientation="portrait"><graphic position="anchor" mimetype="image" xlink:href="ark:/27927/pgh27cq2w1" orientation="portrait" xlink:type="simple" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink" /></boxed-text></p> </abstract>