Synthesis and characterization of telechelic polymers prepared by RAFT

The reversible addn.-fragmentation chain transfer (RAFT) polymn. technique was employed to synthesize telechelic polymers. Me methacrylate, Bu methacrylate were polymd. using RAFT polymn. The polymns. exhibit the usual characteristics of living processes, and were followed by a two-step chain-end modification procedure of the dithioester function attached to the polymer chain (aminolysis followed by a Michael addn. on the resulting thiol) to produce telechelic polymers. As an example, synthesis of hydroxy-telechelic poly(butylmethacrylate) was achieved, the structure being detd. by MALDI-TOF-MS. A general reaction scheme is presented to easily introduce functionality in a polymer chain-end using the RAFT procedure. [on SciFinder (R)]