ABSTRACT:A trehalose-based diallyl compound (I) was synthesized by the acetalization reaction of ,-Dtrehalose with 4-allyloxybenzaldehyde. Alternating copolymers containing trehalose units and siloxane units were synthesized by the hydrosilylation reaction of the diallyl monomer I and telechelic SiH-containing siloxanes in the presence of Karstedt's catalyst. As the SiH-containing siloxanes, 1,1,3,3,5,5-hexamethyltrisiloxane with the molecular weight of 208 (II) and dimethylsiloxane oligomers with the molecular weights of ca. 600 (III) and ca. 1000 (IV) was used. The structure of the obtained copolymers were fully characterized with 1 H-NMR and FT-IR spectroscopy. The weight average molecular weight (M w ) of the copolymers ranged from 5900 to 50000 (GPC). The copolymer with the highest M w was obtained by the reaction of I and III in toluene at 80 C for 72 h. All the polymers showed two glass transition temperatures (T g ), suggesting microphase separation. The lower T g was around À110C, which did not depend on the length of the siloxane oligomer segment; and the higher T g was ranging from 152 C to 96 C, which decreased with an increase in the length of the siloxane oligomer segment. Trehalose has a non-reducing character and relatively stable toward acid and heat compared to other sugars. Recently, Hayashibara Co. Ltd developed a low-cost manufacturing process of ,-D-trehalose from starch via enzymatic reactions.2 In this view, trehalose is one of promising monomers based on renewable resources for the production of linear polymers. [3][4][5][6] We had already established a facile synthetic strategy to prepare trehalose-based linear polymers using the regioselective reaction of 4,6,4 0 ,6 0 hydroxyl groups of ,-Dtrehalose with terephthalaldehyde bis(dimethylacetal) or terephthalaldehyde. 4 However, the weight average molecular weight (M w ) of the obtained polymers was not more than 8500, probably because of the formation of sterically crowded benzylideneglucopyranoside moieties during the polymerization reaction. In addition, the polymer showed no glass transition temperature up to the decomposition temperature.Our new strategy in order to improve these drawbacks is composed of the synthesis of a trehalosederived diallyl compound (I) using the regioselective acetalization reaction of ,-D-trehalose with 4-allyloxybenzaldehyde, and subsequent polymerization with flexible SiH-terminated dimethylsiloxane oligomers by use of hydrosilylation reaction (Scheme 1). We expect that thermoplasticity of rigid trehalosebased polymers will be improved by incorporation of the flexible units. While trehalose-based polymers are rigid polymers as reported previously, polydimethylsiloxane, whose T g is quite low, is not a self-standing polymer and often used as rubber after crosslinking process because of the flexibility of backbones. It is important to obtain a self-standing thermoplastic polymer from the prospective of environmental friendliness and material recycling. There have been many literatures on the synthesis of pol...