Macromolecular Rapid Communications, Vol.30, No.17, 1463-1469, 2009
Defined Poly[styrene-block-(ferrocenylmethyl methacrylate)] Diblock Copolymers via Living Anionic Polymerization
Ferrocenylmethyl methacrylate (FMMA) is one of the very few metallocene-based monomers that are promising candidates for truly living anionic polymerization. Nevertheless, FMMA homopolymers with a narrow polydispersity, or block copolymerization studies that result in satisfying blocking efficiencies, are unknown so far. Here we describe a procedure that leads to highly regular FMMA-based polymers for the first time, characterized by polydispersity indices (PDI) of less that 1.05 and very high blocking efficiencies (>95%) in sequential copolymerization with styrene. Some of the obtained Poly[styrene-block-(ferrocenylmethyl methacrylate)] show unusual microphase morphologies, presumably the consequence of high T(g)s causing 'frustrated' non-equilibrium states.
Keywords:anionic polymerization;living polymerization;metal-containing polymers;metallopolymers (di)block copolymers;microstructure;morphology