Controlled Grafting‐From of Polystyrene on Polybutadiene: Mechanism and Spectroscopic Evidence of the Functionalization of Polybutadiene with 4‐Oxo‐TEMPO

Abstract

Abstract Polybutadienes functionalized with nitroxide (multifunctional macroalkoxyamines) were synthesized by heating PB in the presence of a nitroxide radical (N) and a radical initiator (I). Another functional PB was prepared by using only nitroxide. These functionalized polymers were characterized by FT‐IR, GPC, and NMR and as a result it was possible to elucidate the resulting structure of the macroalkoxyamines, to propose likely functionalization mechanisms, and to estimate functionalization characteristics. One of these polymers was heated in the presence of styrene to obtain PB grafted with polystyrene, which was characterized in detail in order to investigate its structure and level of grafting control. magnified image