Degradable Polysulfones via Migrating Transfer Polymerization

Keywords

group-transfer radical polymerization - polysulfones - Smiles rearrangement - degradable polymer

Significance

A SO₂-free, group-transfer radical polymerization (GTRP) procedure is developed, which utilizes sulfone-substituted α-olefins as monomers to produce aliphatic polysulfones with high molecular weights and narrow distributions. This process offers a new strategy to introduce polar functional groups into the polymer main chain with controlled sequences.

Comment

A sulfonyl radical plays a key role in the chain propagation. The carbon radical from the alkene addition undergoes a group transfer process to generate the sulfonyl radical, which then participates in another addition to the olefin monomer. The chain degradation is proposed to occur via an E1cb process.