Synthesis of block copolymers consisting of liquid crystalline and amorphous segments by living/controlled radical polymerization

Abstract

Living polymerization is most often observed in systems where the growing species are ions. In such systems the chain ends do not react to each other due to elestrostactic repulsion, but only to monomers allowing, this way, the control in structure of the formed polymer. Free radicals, which are the growing species in the radical polymerization, easely undergo combination and prevent a living radical polymerization. Thus, a great challenge to polymer science was in meeting a system that offered to the radical polymerization a radical stabillization alike in ionic polymerizations. At the same time, the radicals should undergo rapid propagation and should not be able to initiate new chains, in a controlled reaction. Some succesfull techniques of living/controlled radical polymerization, such as stable free radical polymerization (SFRP), mediated by nitroxide, INIFERTER and atom transfer polymerization (ATRP) will be overviewed here, as well as their application to the synthesis of liquid crystalline polymers.