Abstract
A novel strategy towards well-defined polymethylene-based co/terpolymers, by combining the anthracene/maleimide Diels-Alder reaction with polyhomologation, is presented. For the synthesis of diblock copolymers the following approach was applied: (a) synthesis of alpha-anthracene-omega-hydroxy-polymethylene by polyhomologation using tri(9-anthracene-methyl propyl ether) borane as the initiator, (b) synthesis of furan-protected-maleimide-terminated poly(epsilon-caprolactone) or polyethylene glycol and (c) the Diels-Alder reaction between the anthracene and maleimide-terminated polymers. In the case of triblock terpolymers the alpha-anthracene-omega-hydroxy-polymethylene was used as a macroinitiator for the ring-opening polymerization of D, L-lactide to afford an anthracene-terminated PM-b-PLA copolymer, followed by the Diels-Alder reaction with furan-protected maleimide-terminated poly (epsilon-caprolactone) or polyethylene glycol to give the triblock terpolymers. All the intermediates and final products were characterized by SEC, H-1 NMR, UV-VIS spectroscopy and DSC.