Living free-radical copolymerization of allyl glycidyl ether with methyl acrylate

Abstract

An investigation of the copolymerization of allyl glycidyl ether (AGE) with methyl acrylate (MA) was performed in the presence of benzyl imidazole-1-carbodithioate (BICDT) on the thermal initiation condition. Results showed that the process has good characteristics of living free radical polymerization, i.e. the molecular weight of the obtained polymer increases linearly with monomer conversion, molecular weight distribution is very narrow, and a linear relationship between ln([M]₀/[M]) and polymerization time is found. The copolymer structure containing epoxy groups was demonstrated from the 1H nuclear magnetic resonance (1H NMR) spectrum. It was found that the content of AGE in the copolymer increases with the increase in monomer conversion and molar faction of the AGE in the monomer feed. However, the polymerization could slow down when the fraction of AGE increases in the monomer feed. Taking advantage of living polymerization character, functional block copolymers PSt-b-P (MA-co-AGE) were prepared in the presence of PSt RAFT agent.