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    Continuous Flow Fabrication of Block Copolymer-Grafted Silica Micro-Particles in Environmentally Friendly Water/Ethanol Media

    Year: 2019

    Journal: Macromol. Mater. Eng., Volume 304, FEB

    Authors: Ye, Piaoran; Cao, Peng-Fei; Chen, Qiyi; Advincula, Rigoberto

    Organizations: National Science Foundation (NSF)National Science Foundation (NSF) [NSF-1608457, NSF-1333651]; U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Science, Basic Energy Science, Material Science, and Engineering Division

    Keywords: block copolymers; flow chemistry; graft from; reversible addition-fragmentation chain transfer polymerization

    Polymer-grafted inorganic particles (PGIPs) are attractive building blocks for numerous chemical and material applications. Surface-initiated controlled radical polymerization (SI-CRP) is the most feasible method to fabricate PGIPs. However, a conventional in-batch reaction still suffers from several disadvantages, including time-consuming purification processes, low grafting efficiency, and possible gelation problems. Herein, a facile method is demonstrated to synthesize block copolymer-grafted inorganic particles, that is, poly(poly(ethylene glycol) methyl ether methacrylate) (PPEGMEMA)-b-poly(N-isopropylacrylamide) (PNIPAM)-grafted silica micro-particles using continuous flow chemistry in an environmentally friendly aqueous media. Immobilizing the chain transfer agent and subsequent SI-CRP can be accomplished sequentially in a continuous flow system, avoiding multi-step purification processes in between. The chain length (MW) of the grafted polymers is tunable by adjusting the flow time or monomer concentration, and the narrower molar mass dispersity ( < 1.4) of the grafted polymers reveals the uniform polymer chains on the particles. Moreover, compared with the in-batch reaction at the same condition, the continuous system also suppresses possible gelation problems.
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