| By taking advantage of the well-defined Acyclic Diene Metathesis (ADMET) polymerization mechanism, new synthetic methods have been developed in order to acquire a controlled molecular design. By combining the macromonomer technique with ADMET, precise graft copolymer architectures have been achieved. These comb structures are a direct result of proper monomer design prior to metathesis polymerization.; Several structural variables have been optimized in order to control the physical nature of the resulting macromolecules. Features such as placement and concentration of the graft site along the polyolefin backbone, chemical nature of the graft, and length and polydispersity of the graft. These modifications have been achieved through “living” techniques by ionic polymerizations or Atom Transfer Radical Polymerizations (ATRP). These techniques have allowed for the functionalization of several polymers such as polystyrene, poly(methyl methacrylate) and poly(ethylene oxide) with an α,ω-diene ADMET precursor. Thus, the metathesis polycondensation results in a combination of two different homopolymers.; The resulting covalent bonds between the two homopolymers lead to interesting thermal investigations. As a result of the chemical linkage, the properties were unlike either the homopolymers or a random copolymer blend. These results are an indication of the regularity attainable by the ADMET mechanism which are not readily possible by other typical polymerization methods. |
