Polymer Bulletin, Vol.61, No.3, 287-297, 2008
Synthesis and characterizations of triphenylamine end-functionalized polymers via reversible addition-fragmentation chain transfer polymerization
A novel reversible addition-fragmentation chain transfer (RAFT) reagent bearing triphenylamine (TPA) group, 4-diphenylamino-dithiobenzoic acid benzyl ester (DDABE), was designed and synthesized. It was used in the RAFT polymerizations of styrene (St) and methyl acrylate (MA) to prepare end-functionalized polymers. The results of the polymerization showed that the RAFT polymerizations could be well controlled using DDABE as the RAFT agent. Number-average molecular weight (M-n,M-GPC) increased linearly with monomer conversion, and molecular weight distributions were relatively narrow (PDI < 1.50). The results of chain-extension reaction, H-1 NMR spectra and UV/Vis spectra confirmed that most of the polymers chains were end-capped by the functional triphenylamine (TPA) groups. The effect of feed molar ratios of St/DDABE/AIBN on polymerization was investigated.