Ultrasonication-Induced Aqueous Atom Transfer Radical Polymerization

Zhenhua Wang; Zhanhua Wang; Xiangcheng Pan; Liye Fu; Sushil Lathwal; Mateusz Olszewski; Jiajun Yan; Alan E Enciso; Zongyu Wang; Hesheng Xia; Krzysztof Matyjaszewski

doi:10.1021/acsmacrolett.8b00027

Ultrasonication-Induced Aqueous Atom Transfer Radical Polymerization

ACS Macro Lett. 2018 Mar 20;7(3):275-280. doi: 10.1021/acsmacrolett.8b00027. Epub 2018 Feb 16.

Authors

Affiliations

¹ The State Key Laboratory of Polymer Materials Engineering, Polymer Research Institute, Sichuan University, Chengdu 610065, China.
² Department of Chemistry, Carnegie Mellon University, 4400 Fifth Avenue, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 15213, United States.
³ The State Key Laboratory of Molecular Engineering of Polymers, Department of Macromolecular Science, Fudan University, Shanghai 200433, China.

PMID: 35632917
DOI: 10.1021/acsmacrolett.8b00027

Abstract

A new procedure for ultrasonication-induced atom transfer radical polymerization (sono-ATRP) in aqueous media was developed. Polymerizations of oligo(ethylene oxide) methyl ether methacrylate (OEOMA) and 2-hydroxyethyl acrylate (HEA) in water were successfully carried out in the presence of ppm amounts of CuBr₂ catalyst and tris(2-pyridylmethyl)amine ligand when exposed to ultrasonication (40 kHz, 110 W) at room temperature. Aqueous sono-ATRP enabled polymerization of water-soluble monomers with excellent control over the molecular weight, dispersity, and high retention of chain-end functionality. Temporal control over the polymer chain growth was demonstrated by switching the ultrasound on/off due to the regeneration of activators by hydroxyl radicals formed by ultrasonication. The synthesis of a well-defined block copolymer and DNA-polymer biohybrid was also successful using this process.