Alpha-trichloroacetoxy terminated polystyrene oligomer (PS-CH2CH2OCOCCl3) and poly-(styrene-b-butadiene) oligomer [P(S-b-B)-CH2CH2OCOCCl3)] were synthesized by living anionic polymeri-zation using n-butyllithium as initiator. Then the PS-CH2CH2OCOCCl3 (PS-Cl-3) or P(S-b-B)-CH2CH2O-COCCl3 (PSB-Cl-3) was used as the macroinitiator in the polymerization of(meth)acrylates in the presence of CuX/bpy. AB diblock and ABC triblock copolymers were prepared by the integrated living anionic polymerization (LAP)-atom transfer radical polymerization (ATRP). The structures of the PSB-Cl-3 and the P(S-b-MMA) were identified by FTIR and H-1-NMR spectrum, respectively. A new way to design block copolymers (the combination of LAP and ATRP) was developed.
In the present paper the synthesis of block copolymers via the transformation from living anionic polymerization (LAP) to atom transfer radical polymerization (ATRP) was described. α-Bromine-terminated polystyrenes(PStBr) in the LAP step was prepared by using n-BuLi as initiator, tetrahydrofuran (THF) as the activator, α-methylstyrene (α-MeSt) as the capping group and liquid bromine (Br_2) as the bromating agent. The effects of reaction conditions such as the amounts of α-MeSt, THF, and Br_2 as well as molecular weight of polystyrene on the bromating efficiency (BE) and coupling extent (CE) were examined. The present results show that the yield of PStBr obtained was more than 93. 8% and the coupling reaction was substantially absent. PStBr was further used as the macroinitiator in the polymerization of methyl-methacrylate (MMA) in the presence of copper (I ) halogen and 2, 2' -bipyridine (bpy) complexes. It was found that the molecular weight of the resulted PSt-b-PMMA increased linearly with the increase of the conversion of MMA and the polydispersity was 1. 2-1.6. The structures of PStBr and P(St-b-MMA) were characterized by ~1H NMR spectra.
No matter what the polymerization manner was, polystyrene with unique highT m (T m = 170–285°C) was obtained through polymerization of styrene if the amount of BDE/CuCl catalyst was highly increased (mol ratio: St:CuCl = 25:1-2.5:1). Partial crystallinity of the PSt was observed by characterizations of X-ray diffraction and DSC. Spectra of1H-NMR and13C-NMR showed that syndiotactic structure contained in the obtained PSt was 5% more than that in aPSt (atactic polystyrene). According to the proposed “coordinated radical cage” mechanism, the coordinated state between radical and catalyst center metal Cu should be more closely packed with increasing the BDE/CuCl catalyst amount, which was induced to partial stereospecific polymerization in the coordinated radical polymerization of St.
