Homo- and copolymerization of N-(2-thiazolyl)methacrylamide with different vinyl monomers: Synthesis, characterization, determination of monomer reactivity ratios and biological activity

Abstract

N-(2-thiazolyl)methacrylamide (TMA) monomer was synthesized from 2-aminothiazole by two different methods. The homo- and copolymerization of this monomer with methyl methacrylate (MMA), styrene (St), acrylonitrile (AN), and vinyl acetate (VA) were performed in dimethyl formamide using 1 mol% AIBN at 70°C. The copolymerization behavior was studied in a wide composition interval with the mole fractions of TMA ranging from 0.1 to 0.7 in the feed. Characterization using FTIR and 1HNMR techniques confirmed the structure of the monomer and the prepared homo- and copolymers, but the copolymers compositions were determined from sulphur analysis. The monomer reactivity ratios were computed using Fineman and Ross and Kelen and Tudos methods for the systems TMA-MMA, TMA-St, TMA-AN and TMA-VA and were found to be r 1 = 0.59 ± 0.05, r 2 = 2.72 ± 0.03; r 1 = 0.39 ± 0.02, r 2 = 0.90 ± 0.01; r 1 = 0.77 ± 0.06, r 2 = 1.99 ± 0.04 and r 1 = 0.80 ± 0.08, r 2 = 0.40 ± 0.05 respectively (r 1 corresponds to monomer reactivity ratio of TMA). The Q and e values for TMA monomer were found to be 1.079 and −0.054. The synthesized monomer and polymers were tested in vitro for biological activity against some microorganisms, using the disk diffusion technique. Generally, all the polymers were effective against the tested microorganisms, but their growth-inhibition effects varied.