Preparation of supramolecular polymers by copolymerization of monomers containing quadruple hydrogen bonding units with regular monomers

The invention relates to the synthesis of polymers contg. self-complementary quadruple H groups by copolymg. monomers contg. a quadruple H bonding group with ³1 monomers of choice. The resulting polymers show unique new characteristics due to the presence of addnl. phys. interactions between the polymer chains that are based on multiple H bonding interactions (supramol. interactions). Thus, 2-isocyanatoethyl methacrylate (7.0 mL) was added to a soln. of 6-(1-ethylpentyl)isocytosine (13.4 g) in dry pyridine (150 mL), the reaction mixt. was stirred under Ar at 80° for 4 h to give a monomer, and was polymerizable with 2-hydroxyethyl methacrylate in the presence of ATRP initiators, CuBr, and bipyridine.