Controlled synthesis of hyperbranched polymers by Iniferter method

In recent years, there have been many developments that directly affect human life in many fields such as medicine, biomedical, textile, paint. One of the main factors contributing to these developments is the developments in polymeric materials. These developments have led to the expansion of the common usage areas of polymers. On the other hand, there are many high-tech polymeric materials that, although they have very superior properties, have not yet been used industrially and can only be produced on a laboratory scale. The main reason why such industrial adaptations cannot be made is the high cost encountered in industrial production due to the difficult and multi-step production processes of these materials. In this context, the development of new synthesis methods that allow high-tech polymers to be obtained by simple and low-cost methods has become increasingly important in recent years. Highly branched polymers, which are an important polymer architecture, have gained importance in recent years due to the advantages they provide. Although there are many methods to obtain hyper branched polymers, the self-condensing vinyl polymerization (SCVP) method is the most widely used method. Many polymers have been synthesized by adapting different controlled polymerization methods to the SCVP method. With the studies carried out within the scope of the thesis, a new synthetic approach combining SCVP and iniferter processes has been introduced to obtain highly branched polymer with controllable branching density. A versatile approach for the synthesis of polystyrene based hyperbranched polymers (hyp-PS) with tunable branching densities by combination of self-condensing vinyl polymerization and iniferter processes is reported. The technique is based on the utilization of a dual functional monomer, 2,2,2-(triphenylethyl)styrene (TPES), that contains both polymerizable and iniferter units. Considering that the type that provides branching is TPES, polymers with different degrees of branching were obtained by changing the TPES ratio. In addition, the effect of time on polymerization was also investigated. Within the scope of the study, firstly, the synthesis of inimers (TPES) was carried out with a two-step procedure. The obtained TPES was copolymerized with styrene in toluene at different rates and highly branched polymers were obtained. This polymerization step was carried out by the self-condensing vinyl polymerization method. Moreover, obtained polymers are used as macroiniferter for the copolymerization of a hydrophilic monomer (poly(ethylene glycol) acrylate) to give amphiphilic branched-core star polymers. In this framework, amphiphilic branched copolymers with hydrophobic PS core and hydrophilic PEGA shell were synthesized. The leading, highly branched and resulting amphiphilic copolymers structures were characterized by 1H NMR, FT-IR, GPC and (WCA) measurements.