Block Copolymers of Polydimethylsiloxane and Polystyrene

Abstract

The title copolymers are prepared essentially free of the parent homopolymers by polymerizing hexamethylcyclotrisiloxane with "living" polystyrene prepared from an alkyllithium. The siloxane polymerization generates poly(styrene-b-dimethylsiloxane) without the complications of chain scission and oligomerization usually encountered in anionic polymerization of cyclosiloxanes. The AB block copolymers resemble surfactants due to the extreme differences in solubility between the two blocks. Films of the block copolymers when cast from solution show a morphology determined by the nature of the solvent and the degree to which each block is solvated.

Morphology of poly(styrene‐block‐dimethylsiloxane) copolymer films

“…20,27,28 In the following discussion, different thermal annealing is used to study the thermal equilibrium of the surface morphology of the PS-b-PDMS copolymer thin films.…”

Ring-chain equilibria and the conformations of polymer chains

“…The fact that block copolymers of polystyrene and poly(dimethylsiloxane) had already been characterised (89)(90)(91), encouraged a preliminary study (88) of the feasibility of studying the statistical conformations of polystyrene chains by using labile dimethylsfloxane linkages to effect ring-chain equilibration reactions. Block copolymers with the structures poly(dimethylsiloxane) poly-b.styrene.b-poly(dimethylsiloxane) were prepared from styrene and hexamethylcyclotrisiloxane by the methods of Wenger (92) and Morton and his co-workers (93).…”

Synthesis and Characterization of Polydimethylsiloxane end-Modified Polystyrene from Poly(Styrene – co –Vinyltriethoxysilane) Copolymers

“…Block copolymers containing PDMS segments may be synthesized by techniques such as anionic polymerization [7][8][9] , atom transfer radical polymerization 10,11 , and reversible addition-fragmentation chain transfer polymerization 12 .…”