High-Throughput Synthesis of Thermoresponsive Poly(oligoethylene glycol acrylate) Copolymers by RAFT Polymerization

Abstract

Thermoresponsive polymers are an interesting class of stimuli-responsive polymers because of their potential in vivo applications resulting from the easily controllabe trigger. In this work, two series of statistical copolymers of di(ethylene glycol) ethyl ether acrylate with di(ethylene glycol) methyl ether acrylate and tri(ethylene glycol) methyl ether acrylate, respectively, were synthesized using high-throughput automated parallel RAFT polymerization to accurately tune the polymer phase transition temperature. Cloud point temperature determination for each copolymer was performed by parallel turbidimetry and revealed a linear relationship with copolymer composition. The crystal structure of the used chain transfer agent 2-(((butylsulfanyl)carbonothioyl) sulfanyl)propanoic acid is also reported.