In this work, by combining size exclusion chromatography
(SEC)
and liquid chromatography at the critical condition (LCCC) techniques,
we have studied the multimer cyclization effect during click step-growth
polymerization of AB-type macromonomers. First, by atom transfer radical
polymerization (ATRP), we have synthesized a series of alkynyl and
azide functional AB-type polystyrene macromonomers with different
molar masses, i.e., PS
n
. Second, via the
click step-growth polymerization of a PS
n
macromonomer in dimethylformamide (DMF) at varied reaction concentrations
(Cs), we have prepared polyaddition products [(PS
n
)
m
] with large
polydispersity indices, where m represents the average
degree of polymerization of the macromonomer. Further, narrowly distributed
fractions have been obtained by SEC fractionation. Third, we have
quantitatively analyzed how the macromonomer molar mass, reaction
concentration, and multimer molar mass influence the percentage of
a cyclic topoisomer (wtcyclic) for (PS
n
)
m
samples. In particular, we have
established the relation between wtcyclic and C for unfractionated (PS
n
)
m
, i.e., wtcyclic = 0.86–0.32 log C, and the relation between wtcyclic and m for fractionated (PS
n
)
m
prepared at a constant C = 100 g/L, i.e., log wtcyclic = −0.46m + 0.16. For the first time, our
result has unambiguously pointed out that neither a cyclic topoisomer
nor a linear topoisomer can be ignored when considering the structure–property
quantitative relationship for polyaddition products.
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