| Abstract: | Dendrigraft polystyrene was prepared using poly(p-chloromethyl styrene) as the multicentre initiator by atom transfer radical polymerization (ATRP). The resulting polymer was characterized with light scattering, intrinsic viscosity, thermal analysis and atomic force microscopy (AFM) imaging. The AFM image showed there were two kinds of different structural dendrigraft polystyrenes in the product, ie the ‘coupling’ dendrigraft polystyrene and ‘free’ dendrigraft polystyrene. The ‘coupling’ structure might result from the coupling reaction of growing radical chain ends. The second virial coefficient A2 and intrinsic viscosity of the dendrigraft polystyrene were smaller than those of the relative linear and twelve-arm star polystyrene, and the thermal analysis showed that the initial decomposition temperature was a little higher than that of linear polystyrene. © 1999 Society of Chemical Industry |
