Open Access

ARTICLE

One-Pot Synthesis of Thermoresponsive Cellulose-Based Miktoarm Graft Copolymer by Simultaneous ATRP and ROP

Yadong Liu¹, Guangcheng Huang^1,2, Yuanyuan Pang^1,2, Miaomiao Han¹, Shengxiang Ji^1,*

1 Key Laboratory of Polymer Ecomaterials, Changchun Institute of Applied Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Changchun 130022, P. R. China
2 University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100039, P. R. China

* Corresponding Author:

Journal of Renewable Materials 2015, 3(2), 113-119. https://doi.org/10.7569/JRM.2014.634141

Received 20 November 2014; Accepted 08 April 2015;

Abstract

In this work, we report a one-pot synthesis of amphiphilic miktoarm cellulose graft copolymers, cellulose (-graft-oligo(L-lactide))-graft-oligo(N-isopropylacrylamide) (Cell(-g-OLLA)-g-ONIPAM), with dual side chains of oligo(L-lactide) and oligo(N-isopropylacrylamide) using 2-bromoisobutyl bromide functionalized cellulose (Cell(-OH)-Br) as the macroinitiator, by simultaneously conducting ring-opening polymerization and atom transfer radical polymerization using Cu/CuBr/PMDETA/Sn(Oct)₂ as the catalytic system. The chemical structures and thermal properties of Cell(-g-OLLA)-g-ONIPAMs were characterized with ¹ H and ¹³C nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy, differential scanning calorimetry and thermal gravimetric analysis. Cell (-g-OLLA)-g-ONIPAM could self-assemble into micelles in the aqueous solution as confi rmed by environmental scanning electron microscopy and dynamic light scattering analyses. The micellar aggregates showed a temperature-responsive property and the sizes of micelles were infl uenced by the ratio of temperature-responsive ONIPAM side chains. The miktoarm graft copolymers have potential applications as biomedical or intelligent materials.

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Keywords

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