Synthesis and properties of novel fluoroalkyl end-capped oligomers having adamantane units in the main chains via a radical process

Abstract

Fluoroalkanoyl peroxides were reacted with adamantane in the presence of radical polymerizable monomers such as acrylic acid, acryloylmorpholine, and N,N-dimethylacrylamide to afford fluoroalkyl end-capped oligomers having adamantane units in the main chains via a radical process under very mild conditions. Thermal stability of these new fluorinated adamantane co-oligomers thus obtained became higher than that of the corresponding fluorinated homo-oligomers having no adamantane units. Interestingly, these fluorinated adamantane co-oligomers exhibited good solubility in traditional organic solvents such as methanol, ethanol, tetrahydrofuran, chloroform, benzene, dimethylsulfoxide and N,N-dimethylformamide including water, although the parent adamantane exhibited no solubility in water, methanol and dimethylsulfoxide. Furthermore, these adamantane co-oligomers were able to reduce the surface tension effectively to form the nanometer size-controlled self-assembled fluorinated molecular aggregates. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.