"On Water" Surface-initiated Polymerization of Hydrophobic Monomers

Yunjiao Che; Tao Zhang; Yunhao Du; Ihsan Amin; Claudia Marschelke; Rainer Jordan

doi:10.1002/anie.201809100

"On Water" Surface-initiated Polymerization of Hydrophobic Monomers

Angew Chem Int Ed Engl. 2018 Dec 10;57(50):16380-16384. doi: 10.1002/anie.201809100. Epub 2018 Nov 14.

Authors

Yunjiao Che^{1

2}, Tao Zhang¹, Yunhao Du¹, Ihsan Amin^{1

3}, Claudia Marschelke², Rainer Jordan¹

Affiliations

¹ Chair of Macromolecular Chemistry, Faculty of Chemistry and Food Chemistry, Technische Universität Dresden, Mommsenstr. 4, 01069, Dresden, Germany.
² Leibniz-Institut für Polymerforschung Dresden e.V., Hohe Straße 6, 01069, Dresden, Germany.
³ Leibniz-Institut für Plasmaforschung und Technologie, Felix-Hausdorff-Straße 2, 17489, Greifswald, Germany.

PMID: 30300921
DOI: 10.1002/anie.201809100

Abstract

We present the "on water" surface-initiated Cu-mediated controlled radical polymerization ("on water" SI-CuCRP) that converts hydrophobic monomers in aqueous reaction medium to polymer brushes at unparalleled speed and efficiency. The method allows the facile conversion of a variety of common monomers under most simple reaction conditions and with minimal monomer amounts to thick and homogeneous polymer brushes. The highly living character of the "on water" SI-CuCRP allowed the preparation of decablock (homo)polymer brushes and opens the pathway to sequentially controlled polymer brushes on solids.

Keywords: controlled radical polymerization; polymer brush; polymer film; surface-initiated polymerization; “on water” reaction.