Hyperbranched Polycaprolactone through RAFT Polymerization of 2-Methylene-1,3-dioxepane
Ping Xu,
Xiaofei Huang,
Xiangqiang Pan,
Na Li,
Jian Zhu,
Xiulin Zhu
Affiliations
Ping Xu
State and Local Joint Engineering Laboratory for Novel Functional Polymeric Materials, Jiangsu Key Laboratory of Advanced Functional Polymer Design and Application, Department of Polymer Science and Engineering, College of Chemistry, Chemical Engineering and Materials Science, Soochow University, Suzhou 215123, China
Xiaofei Huang
State and Local Joint Engineering Laboratory for Novel Functional Polymeric Materials, Jiangsu Key Laboratory of Advanced Functional Polymer Design and Application, Department of Polymer Science and Engineering, College of Chemistry, Chemical Engineering and Materials Science, Soochow University, Suzhou 215123, China
Xiangqiang Pan
State and Local Joint Engineering Laboratory for Novel Functional Polymeric Materials, Jiangsu Key Laboratory of Advanced Functional Polymer Design and Application, Department of Polymer Science and Engineering, College of Chemistry, Chemical Engineering and Materials Science, Soochow University, Suzhou 215123, China
Na Li
State and Local Joint Engineering Laboratory for Novel Functional Polymeric Materials, Jiangsu Key Laboratory of Advanced Functional Polymer Design and Application, Department of Polymer Science and Engineering, College of Chemistry, Chemical Engineering and Materials Science, Soochow University, Suzhou 215123, China
Jian Zhu
State and Local Joint Engineering Laboratory for Novel Functional Polymeric Materials, Jiangsu Key Laboratory of Advanced Functional Polymer Design and Application, Department of Polymer Science and Engineering, College of Chemistry, Chemical Engineering and Materials Science, Soochow University, Suzhou 215123, China
Xiulin Zhu
State and Local Joint Engineering Laboratory for Novel Functional Polymeric Materials, Jiangsu Key Laboratory of Advanced Functional Polymer Design and Application, Department of Polymer Science and Engineering, College of Chemistry, Chemical Engineering and Materials Science, Soochow University, Suzhou 215123, China
Hyperbranched polycaprolactone with controlled structure was synthesized by reversible addition-fragmentation chain transfer radical ring-opening polymerization along with self-condensed vinyl polymerization (SCVP) of 2-methylene-1,3-dioxepane (MDO). Vinyl 2-[(ethoxycarbonothioyl) sulfanyl] propanoate (ECTVP) was used as polymerizable chain transfer agent. Living polymerization behavior was proved via pseudo linear kinetics, the molecular weight of polymers increasing with conversion and successful chain extension. The structure of polymers was characterized by 1H NMR spectroscopy, tripe detection gel permeation chromatography, and differential scanning calorimetry. The polymer composition was shown to be able to tune to vary the amount of ester repeat units in the polymer backbone, and hence determine the degree of branching. As expected, the degree of crystallinity was lower and the rate of degradation was faster in cases of increasing the number of branches.
