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Aqueous Copper‐Mediated Living Radical Polymerisation of N ‐Acryloylmorpholine, SET‐LRP in Water
Author(s) -
Anastasaki Athina,
Haddleton Alice J.,
Zhang Qiang,
Simula Alexandre,
Droesbeke Martijn,
Wilson Paul,
Haddleton David M.
Publication year - 2014
Publication title -
macromolecular rapid communications
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.348
H-Index - 154
eISSN - 1521-3927
pISSN - 1022-1336
DOI - 10.1002/marc.201400024
Subject(s) - aqueous solution , copper , radical polymerization , polymer chemistry , monomer , chemistry , polymerization , polymer science , materials science , organic chemistry , polymer
The polymerisation of N ‐acryloylmorpholine in water is reported utilising Cu(0)‐mediated living radical polymerisation (SET‐LRP). The inherent instability of [Cu I (Me 6 ‐Tren)Br] in aqueous solution is exploited via rapid disproportionation to prepare Cu(0) particles and [Cu II (Me 6 ‐Tren)Br 2 ] in situ prior to addition of monomer and initiator. Quantitative conversion is attained within 30 min for various degrees of polymerisation (DP n = 20–640) with SEC showing symmetrical narrow molecular weight distributions ( Đ < 1.18) in all cases. Optimised conditions are subsequently applied for the preparation of a diblock copolymer poly(NIPAm)‐ b ‐( N ‐acryloylmorpholine), illustrating the versatility of this approach.