Nitroxide mediated polymerization of styrene with trans-anethole

M. PEREDA; KWAN S.; MARIC M.

Santa Fe

Simposio; XI SIMPOSIO ARGENTINO DE POLÍMEROS- SAP 2015; 2015

The statistical nitroxide mediated copolymerization of styrene with trans-p-methoxy-b-methylstyrene (trans-anethole) using the BlocBuilder alkoxyamine unimolecular initiator bearing asuccinimidyl activated ester moiety as a nitroxide initiator was studied. Naturally occurring b-methylstyrenes, such as anethole, possess electron-donating alkoxy substituents from an aromatic ring,thus requiring fluorinated solvents to effect a polymerization. The synthesized polymers werecharacterized by GPC and 1H NMR. 1H NMR spectra allows us to calculate the overall conversion infunction of time: as anethole concentration in the initial composition increased (from 10 to 50 mol %), theconversion of styrene was reduced, suggesting that anethole is inhibiting the reaction. The semilogarithmicplots of ln(1/(1-x)-1) versus time were all fit quite well to a straight line (R2> 0.9). By GPC, itwas possible to observe that Mn of the copolymers increased in direct proportion to the total monomerconversions and that the dispersity D was low (