Polyethylene (PE) is produced in a huge scale globally and has plenty of desirable properties. It is used in coating, packaging, and artificial joint replacements. The growing need for high performance polyethylene led to the development of new catalysts, monomers and polymerizations. The synthesis of polymethylene (equivalent to polyethylene) by living polyhomologation opened the way to well-defined polymethylenes-based polymeric materials with controlled structure, molecular weight and narrow polydispersity. Such model polymers are substantial to study the structure-properties relationships. This research presents a new strategy based on the in situ formation of B-thexyl-silaboracyclic serving as initiating sites for the polyhomologation of dimethylsulfoxonium methylide. Combination with metal-free ring-opening polymerization (ROP) of ɛ-caprolactone (CL) and atom transfer radical polymerization (ATRP) of styrene led to three polymethylene-based 3-miktoarm stars copolymers PCL(PM-OH)2, Br-PCL(PM-OH)2 and PS(PM-OH)2.
| Date of Award | May 2015 |
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| Original language | English (US) |
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| Awarding Institution | - Physical Sciences and Engineering
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| Supervisor | Nikos Hadjichristidis (Supervisor) |
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- polyhomologation
- Polyethylene
- star polymers
- size exclusion chromatography
- differential scanning calorimetry
- Nuclear magnetic resonance