Amphiphilic Poly(4‐acryloylmorpholine)/Poly[2‐( N ‐carbazolyl)ethyl acrylate] Random and Block Copolymers Synthesized by NMP

A series of random copolymers and block copolymers containing water‐soluble 4AM and fluorescent VAK are synthesized by NMP. The homopolymerizations of 4AM and VAK and 4AM/VAK random copolymerization are performed in 50 wt% DMF using 10 mol% SG1, resulting in a linear increase in $\overline {M} _{{\rm n}} $ versus conversion, and final polymers with narrow molecular weight distributions ( $\overline {M} _{{\rm w}} /\overline {M} _{{\rm n}} $  < 1.4). Reactivity ratios r VAK  = 0.64 ± 0.52 and r 4AM  = 0.86 ± 0.66 are obtained for the 4AM/VAK random copolymerization. In addition, a poly(4AM) macroinitiator is used to initiate a surfactant‐free suspension polymerization of VAK. After 2.5 h, the resulting amphiphilic block copolymer has $\overline {M} _{{\rm n}} $  = 12.6 kg · mol −1 , $\overline {M} _{{\rm w}} /\overline {M} _{{\rm n}} $  = 1.48, molar composition F VAK  = 0.38 with latex particle sizes between 270 and 475 nm.