SEC/MALLS measurement of the branched structure of methyl methacrylate + ethylene glycol dimethacrylate copolymers synthesized by atom transfer radical polymerization

• Main Author: Trigo, Ivone
• Publication Date: 2008
• Other Authors: Gonçalves, Miguel A.D., Dias, Rolando, Costa, Mário Rui
• Language: eng
• Source: Repositórios Científicos de Acesso Aberto de Portugal (RCAAP)
• Download full: http://hdl.handle.net/10198/799
• topic: Branching; Crosslinking; Atom-transfer; Molecular weight; Radius of gyration

In the last few years, atom transfer radical polymerization (ATRP) of acrylate and methacrylate monomers in the presence of a small amount of cross-linker has been investigated in order to produce branched polymers and gels with applications in microelectronics, coatings industries or biomedicine (Wang and Zhu, 2005; Gao et al., 2007). In this context, it is being explored the production by ATRP of branched/crosslinked polymers with a lower degree of heterogeneity than that obtained by conventional free radical polymerization (FRP). This work reports an experimental study on the ATRP of methyl methacrylate (MMA) + ethylene glycol dimethacrylate (EGDMA) initiated by MBPA (methyl -bromophenylacetate) and mediated by copper bromide (CuBr) ligated with HMTETA (1,1,4,7,10,10- hexamethyltriethylenetetramine). The synthesized copolymers were analyzed by size exclusion chromatography (SEC) with simultaneous detection of refractive index (RI) and multi-angle laser light scattering (MALLS) signals. Important details of the molecular architecture of these materials can therefore be measured, namely absolute molecular weights and z-average radius of gyration. Different experimental runs were performed in order to investigate the influence of the operating conditions (e.g. temperature and initial molar ratios MMA/EGDMA/MBPA/CuBr/HMTETA) on the structure of the products.