Polymerization of 2‐hydroxyethyl acrylate in bulk and solution by chemical initiator and by ATRP method

Abstract

In this study, 2‐hydroxyethyl acrylate (HEA) was polymerized to obtain polymers that can be used as hydrogel and copolymerized for biomedical applications. Bulk, solution, and atom transfer radical polymerization (ATRP) techniques at different temperatures were applied. The polymerization in bulk form was carried out in vacuum and in open atmosphere. The polymerization curves showed autoacceleration mechanism and the limiting conversion was 100%. The polymers obtained were insoluable in most common solvents because of high molecular weights and strong intermolecular hydrogen bonding. They absorb more than 30% (w/w) water as hydrogel. To decrease the molecular weight and obtain soluble polymers, HEA was polymerized in solution by ATRP method, which also gave insoluble hydrogel type polymers. The activation energy for bulk polymerization was 155.8 kJ/mol, which is very high for a free radical polymerization. This is due to the high degree of intermolecular hydrogen bonding, which was also supported by FTIR and TGA analysis. The polymers were characterized by FT‐IR, DSC, TGA, and 1H NMR techniques. © 2005 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Polym Sci Part A: Polym Chem 43: 3957–3965, 2005

Chemical modification of block copolymers based on 2-hydroxyethyl acrylate to obtain amphiphilic glycopolymers

“…The T g s of mono and difunctional macroinitiators of PBA were previously measured (-50.2 and -49.9 ºC, respectively) [54] and that of PHEA homopolymer (M n sec =15,300 g/mol, M w /M n =1. 19), was determined at -7.9 ºC, which is in good agreement with the values found in the literature, [57] and lower than that exhibited by PHEA synthetized using conventional radical polymerization or other techniques, i.e. with higher molecular weight and polydispersity.…”

A Combined Computational and Experimental Study on the Free‐Radical Copolymerization of Styrene and Hydroxyethyl Acrylate

“…As poly (2‐hydroxyethyl acrylate) pHEA exhibits high biocompatibility and low thrombogenicity, biomedical material research has been focused primarily on the development of pHEA‐based hydrogels 6. Controlled radical polymerization has been used to synthesize homopolymers and block copolymers based on HEA with well‐defined structures for the drug deliveries 8–10…”

Polymeric Nanocapsule from Silica Nanoparticle@Cross-linked Polymer Nanoparticles via One-Pot Approach

“…The weight loss before the decomposition was attributed to the release of the moisture adsorbed because the (co)polymers of HEA and/or MBA have good water absorption. Thus, the total percentage of grafting (mass ratio of the polymer grafted and the silica template) was calculated to be about 12% with a polymerizing time of 72 h. It seemed that the polymerizing rate in this work was lower than that of the works reported [17,18]. It might be due to the gelation of the polymerization and the poor solubility of the polymer shells in water [18].…”