Introduction of quaternary amines onto a film surface by graft polymerization

Quaternary amines were introduced onto a poly(ethylene terephthalate) (PET) film surface by two different methods using UV-induced graft polymerization. The first involves a two-step reaction: graft polymerization of N,N′-(dimethylamino)ethyl methacrylate (DMAEMA) onto the PET film, followed by quaternization of the tertiary N,N′-dimethylamino groups of grafted chains using alkyl bromides (R_nBr). The second is direct graft polymerization of DMAEMA having pendant quaternary amines onto the PET film. The alkyl bromides used for quaternization of the monomers and graft chains include: n-propyl, n-butyl, n-octyl, n-lauryl, and n-cetyl bromide. The two-step method could quaternarize 90% of the pendant N,N′-dimethylamino groups of the graft chains when R₃Br was used. The extent of quaternization decreased with the increasing carbon number of alkyl bromide. The direct one-step method gave a graft amine density of 8 nmol/cm² when the monomer quaternized with R₃Br was used for the graft polymerization in the presence of 1 X 10^-3M sodium metaperiodate. The carbon number of alkyl chains in the quaternary amines estimated from XPS spectra was in good agreement with that of R_nBr used for quaternization. © 1996 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.