Synthesis, Characterization, Crystalline Morphologies, and Hydrophilicity of Brush Copolymers with Double Crystallizable Side Chains

Abstract

Novel brush copolymers with poly(2-hydroxyethyl methacrylate) (PHEMA) as polymer backbone and diblock copolymer consisting of crystallizable poly(e-caprolactone) (PCL) and poly(ethylene oxide) (PEO) as side chains were synthesized successively by the combination of ring-opening polymerization (ROP) and coupling reaction. The molecular weights of poly(2-hydroxyethyl methacrylate)-graft-poly(e-caprolactone) (PHEMA-g-PCL) brush copolymers were controllable, and the molecular weight distributions were in the range of 1.28−1.32. The coupling reaction efficiency of hydroxyl-terminated mPEO (mPEO-OH) with PCL-OH in the PHEMA-g-PCL to produce poly(2-hydroxyethyl methacrylate)-graft-poly(e-caprolactone)-block-poly(ethy lene oxide) (PHEMA-g-(PCL-b-PEO)) ranged from 85.2% to 94.3%. The investigation of the melting and crystallization demonstrated that the values of crystallization temperature (Tc), melting temperature (Tm), and the degree crystallinity (Xc) of PHEMA-g-PCL were enhanced with the chain length increase...