Metal-catalyzed simultaneous chain- and step-growth radical polymerization: marriage of vinyl polymers and polyesters

All polymerization reactions are categorized into two large different families, chain- and step-growth polymerizations, which are typically incompatible. Here, we report the simultaneous chain- and step-growth polymerization via the metal-catalyzed radical copolymerization of conjugated vinyl monomers and designed monomers possessing unconjugated C horizontal lineC and active C-Cl bonds. Especially, almost ideal linear random copolymers containing both vinyl polymer and polyester units in a single polymer chain were formed by the CuCl/1,1,4,7,10,10-hexamethyltriethylenetetramine- or RuCp*Cl(PPh(3))(2)-catalyzed copolymerization of methyl acrylate (MA) for the chain-growth polymerization and 3-butenyl 2-chloropropionate (1) for the step-growth polymerization. In contrast, other transition metal catalysts, such as CuCl with tris[2-(dimethylamino)ethyl]amine or N,N,N',N'',N''-pentamethyldiethylenetriamine and FeCl(2)/PnBu(3), resulted in branched structures via the concomitant chain-growth copolymerization of 1 with MA. The polymerization mechanism was studied in detail by NMR and MALDI-TOF-MS analyses of the polymerizations as well as the model reactions. Furthermore, a series of copolymers changing from random to multiblock polymer structures were obtained by varying the feed ratios of the two monomers. These copolymers can be easily degraded into lower molecular weight oligomers or polymers via methanolysis of the ester-linkages in the main chain using sodium carbonate.