RAFT Step-Growth Polymerization of Diacrylates

• Published in: ACS macro letters Vol. 11; no. 9; pp. 1079 - 1084
• Main Authors: Archer, Noel E., Boeck, Parker T., Ajirniar, Yasmin, Tanaka, Joji, You, Wei
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: American Chemical Society 20.09.2022
• ISSN: 2161-1653; 2161-1653
• DOI: 10.1021/acsmacrolett.2c00476

RAFT step-growth polymerization was previously demonstrated with monomers that bear low rate of homopropagation to favor the chain transfer process; by contrast, acrylates are known to be fast homopropagating monomers, thereby posing serious challenges for RAFT step-growth. Here, we identified a chain transfer agent (CTA) that rapidly yields single unit monomer inserted (SUMI) CTA adducts with a model acrylate monomer. Using a bifunctional reagent of this CTA, we successfully demonstrated RAFT step-growth polymerization with diacrylates, yielding linear polymer backbones. Furthermore, we achieved inclusion of functionality (i.e., disulfide) into RAFT step-growth polymer via a disulfide incorporated bifunctional CTA. Grafting from this backbone resulted in molecular brush polymers with cleavable functionality in each repeat unit of the backbone, allowing selective degradation to afford well-defined unimolecular species of two polymeric side chains. Given the wide selection of commercially available diacrylates, RAFT step-growth polymerization of diacrylates will further enable facile synthesis of complex architectures with modular backbones.