Several chelating monomers with methacrylate and maleimide residues as polymerizable groups and diketone and aspartic acid residues as metal-bonding groups were synthesized. A long-chain aliphatic spacer was introduced to increase the solubility of the monomers in the polymer melt and to enhance the compatibility of grafted side chains and homopolymers with polypropylene (PP). PP was functionalized by melt free-radical grafting, and some properties of the modified polymer were investigated. The grafting of a chelating methacrylic ester by injection molding afforded grafting yields of 30-50%. A comparison with products obtained by the grafting of commercially available acetoacetoxy methyl methacrylate showed the beneficial effect of the aliphatic spacer with respect to the grafting yield as well as the tensile strength and flexural modulus. The grafting of an aspartic acid based maleimide in an extruder afforded grafting yields of 80-95% and a significant increase in the surface wettability, as shown by contact-angle measurements. A comparative study using samples obtained by the grafting of maleimidobenzoic acid indicated that the homogeneity-increasing effect of the spacer was neutralized by the detrimental effect of the dicarboxylic chelating group. Nevertheless, the results showed that the maleimides were well suited for grafting by reactive extrusion because of their low susceptibility to homopolymerization under melt-processing conditions. Preliminary metalization experiments showed the feasibility of plating without the use of corrosive etchants. (C) 2003 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.