A Novel Functional Polymer with Tunable LCST

Abstract

Poly(N-[(2,2-dimethyl-1,3-dioxolane)methyl]acrylamide) (PDMDOMA), a novel thermo-responsive polymer containing pendant dioxolane groups was synthesized via atom transfer radical polymerization (ATRP). Water soluble PDMDOMAs with controlled molecular weight and narrow molecular weight distribution were obtained. GPC−MALLS and MALDI−TOF−MS analysis verified the controlled nature of polymerization. It was found that an aqueous solution of PDMDOMA has a lower critical solution temperature (LCST) around 23 °C. The LCST of PDMDOMA was finely tuned over a wide temperature range by the partial hydrolysis of the acid labile dioxolane side group to form diol moieties (PDMDOMA diols). Unlike the traditional way of controlling LCST by copolymerization, the advantage of this method is that a series of thermo-responsive polymers with different LCST can be prepared from a single batch of polymer with comparable molecular weight profiles. The LCST of the resulting PDMDOMA diols increased almost linearly up to 28 mol % of...