Abstract
We report the controlled radical polymerization of 2-vinyl-4,4-dimethyl azlactone (VDMA), a 2-alkenyl-2-oxazolin-5-one monomer that contains a polymerizable vinyl moiety as well as a highly reactive, pendant azlactone as well as solution characterizations and surface attachment and functionaliztion. Reversible addition fragmentation chain transfer (RAFT) was used to polymerize of VDMA in benzene at 65 °C using either 2-(2-cyanopropyl) dithiobenzoate (CPDB) or 2-dodecylsulfanylthiocarbonyl-sulfanyl-2-methylpropionic acid (DMP) as RAFT chain transfer agents (CTAs). The pseudo first order kinetics and resultant well-defined polymers of low polydispersity indicate that both CTAs afford control over the RAFT polymerization of VDMA. Dynamic and static light scattering and small angle neutron scattering were performed to determine the dn/dc, weight-average molecular weight, radius of gyration, and second virial coefficient of VDMA homopolymers in THF. Additionally, well-defined polymers of VDMA containing carboxyl end groups were covalently attached to epoxy modified silicon wafers via esterification to produce polymeric scaffolds that could be subsequently functionalized for various bio-inspired applications.
