A Facile Strategy for Catalyst Separation and Recycling Suitable for ATRP of Hydrophilic Monomers Using a Macroligand. Issue 2 (27th October 2015)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Jiang, Xiaowu; Wu, Jian; Zhang, Lifen; Cheng, Zhenping; Zhu, Xiulin
• Is Part Of: Macromolecular rapid communications. Volume 37:Issue 2(2016)
• Page Start: 143
• Page End: 148
• Publication Date: 2015-10-27
• Subjects: atom transfer radical polymerization (ATRP) -- catalyst recycling -- catalyst separation -- hydrophilic monomer -- latent‐biphasic catalysis; Macromolecules -- Periodicals; Polymers -- Periodicals; Chemistry -- Periodicals; 547.705
• DOI: 10.1002/marc.201500439
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1022-1336

Abstract

Abstract : How to simply and efficiently separate and recycle catalyst has still been a constraint for the wide application of atom transfer radical polymerization (ATRP), especially for the polymerization systems with hydrophilic monomers because the polar functional groups may coordinate with transition metal salts, resulting in abundant catalyst residual in the resultant water‐soluble polymers. In order to overcome this problem, a latent‐biphasic system is developed, which can be successfully used for ATRP catalyst separation and recycling in situ for various kinds of hydrophilic monomers for the first time, such as poly(ethylene glycol) monomethyl ether methacrylate (PEGMA), 2‐hydroxyethyl methacrylate (HEMA), 2‐(dimethylamino)ethyl methacrylate (DMAEMA), N, N ‐dimethyl acrylamide (DMA), and N ‐isopropylacrylamide (NIPAM). Herein, random copolymer of octadecyl acrylate (OA), MA‐Ln (2‐(bis(pyridin‐2‐ylmethyl)amino)ethyl acrylate), and POA‐ ran ‐P(MA‐Ln) is designed as the macroligand, and heptane/ethanol is selected as the biphasic solvent. Copper(II) bromide (CuBr2 ) is employed as the catalyst, PEG‐bound 2‐bromo‐2‐methylpropanoate (PEG350 ‐Br) as the water‐soluble ATRP initiator and 2, 2′‐azobis(isobutyronitrile) (AIBN) as the azo‐initiator to establish an ICAR (initiators for continuous activator regeneration) ATRP system. Importantly, well‐defined water‐soluble polymers are obtained even though the recyclable catalyst is used for sixth times. Abstract : Heptane/ethanol latent‐biphasic system is applied successfully for Atom Transfer Radical Polymerization (ATRP) of a series of hydrophilic monomers for catalyst separation and recycling in situ with oil‐soluble random copolymer of octadecyl acrylate (OA) and MA‐Ln (2‐(bis(pyridin‐2‐ylmethyl)amino)ethyl acrylate), POA‐ran‐P(MA‐Ln) as a macroligand.