A Novel Strategy for the Synthesis of Amphiphilic and Thermoresponsive Poly(N-isopropylacrylamide)--Polystyrene Block Copolymers via ATRP.

A new synthetic approach is presented for the preparation of Poly(N-isopropylacrylamide-block-styrene) PNIPAM--PS via an Atom Transfer Radical Polymerization (ATRP) technique. The proposed method is based on application of 2-chloro-N-(2-hydroxyethyl)propanamide (NCPAE) as a bifunctional initiator, which enables ATRP of two monomers, differing in activity and polarity, into two stages. The synthesized copolymer molecules contain two well-defined polymer chains connected by a linker, which is a derivative of the proposed initiator.