synthesis of acrylate-1-hexene based functional polyolefin using activators regenerated by electron transfer atom transfer radical polymerization (arget atrp)

The copolymerization of methyl acrylate (ma) and glycidyl methacrylate (gma) with 1-hexene was carried out using activator regenerator by electron transfer atom transfer radical polymerization (arget atrp) employing cu(0)/cubr2 as a catalyst, pentamethyl diethylenetriamine (pmdeta) as a ligand, and ethyl 2-bromoisopropionate (ebrip) as the initiator, all at a reaction temperature of 70°c. this process resulted in the production of viscous and transparent copolymers, namely poly (methyl acrylate-co-1-hexene) or pmh and poly (glycidyl methacrylate co-1-hexene) or pgmh. for the ma/1-hex copolymer, conversion rates ranged from a maximum of 31 wt.% to a minimum of 12 wt.%, while the gma/1-hexene copolymer exhibited conversion rates ranging from a maximum of 42 wt.% to a minimum of 12 wt.%. it was observed that increasing the amount of 1-hexene during the synthesis led to a higher incorporation of 1-hexene content in both the ma and gma polymer backbones, with a maximum of 15 wt.% and 18 wt.% of 1-hexene being incorporated into pmh and pgmh, respectively. the incorporation of 1-hexene was confirmed through nuclear magnetic resonance (nmr) studies, including 1 h, 13c, and dept 135 studies. additionally, the copolymer pmh and pgmh exhibited monomodal molecular weight distribution curves when evaluated using the size exclusion chromatography (sec) high-performance liquid chromatography (hplc) technique, with polydispersity values in the range of 1.19-1.37 and 1.07-1.11, respectively. these findings indicate that the copolymerization process was well-controlled and followed a radical polymerization mechanism.