Organotellurium-Mediated Living Radical Polymerization (TERP) of Acrylates Using Ditelluride Compounds and Binary Azo Initiators for the Synthesis of High-Performance Adhesive Block Copolymers for On-Demand Dismantlable Adhesion

Abstract

We report the organotellurium-mediated living radical polymerization (TERP) using diphenylditelluride (DT-Ph) and di-n-butylditelluride (DT-Bu) in the presence of a binary azo initiator system consisting of 2,2′-azobis(isobutyronitrile) (AIBN) and 2,2′-azobis(4-methoxy-2,4-dimethylvaleronitrile) (AMVN) with different decomposition rates for the facile synthesis of high-molecular-weight block copolymers containing a polar side group. The block copolymers containing the poly(tert-butyl acrylate) (PtBA) sequence as the reactive segment and the random copolymer sequences of n-butyl acrylate (nBA) or 2-ethylhexyl acrylate (2EHA) with 2-hydroxyethyl acrylate (HEA) as the adhesive segment were synthesized. The concurrent use of the binary initiators was revealed to effectively increase both the polymerization reactivity and the molecular weight of the polymers along with a narrow molecular weight distribution. The produced block copolymers exhibited high performance for the dismantlable adhesion responsible for ...