Matching Items (1)
Filtering by
- All Subjects: Sustainability
Description
Acrylate polymers are a versatile class of polymers that have found extensive applications in diverse fields, including adhesive, coatings, packaging, cosmetics, textile, food, electronics, and automotive industries. Incorporating crosslinking elements such as supramolecular chemistry or photoreactive group imparts unique and desirable properties to the resulting acrylate polymers. In the first project, regioselective Michael addition allowed the efficient installation of the nucleobase, guanine and cytosine, on acrylate-containing monomers, which enabled the preparation of a series of nucleobase functionalized acrylate and n-butyl acrylate copolymers using conventional free radical copolymerization. Guanine-containing copolymers exhibited superior thermal, thermomechanical, and morphological properties than cytosine-containing copolymer analogs due to the relatively strong guanine self-association. Further understanding of rheological, mechanical, and adhesive properties revealed the influence of guanine content and provided valuable information for designing and optimizing guanine-containing copolymers for elastomers and adhesives. Controlled radical polymerization enabled the synthesis of guanine and cytosine-containing triblock copolymers. Blending these two triblock copolymers formed supramolecular networks through molecular recognitions between guanine and cytosine and enhanced polymer self-assembly. Next, incorporating spiropyran photoisomerization functional groups in the acrylate copolymer enabled the formation of zwitterionic polymers upon ultraviolet (UV) radiation, which facilitated the Cu ion removal from aqueous solutions. The final project aimed to synthesize a family of macro-crosslinkers bearing an acrylate pendant group, which demonstrated compatibility with versatile reactive diluents, such as poly(dimethyl siloxane) and epoxy. The designed macro-crosslinkers showed promise in developing UV adhesives with desirable properties, such as low shrinkage, fast curing, and high thermal stability. These projects offered valuable insights into the fundamental structure-property-morphology relationships in crosslinked acrylic polymers that incorporate supramolecular chemistry or photoreactive functional groups, paving the way for new advances in the design of acrylate polymer with enhanced mechanical and morphological properties.
ContributorsLiu, Boer (Author) / Long, Timothy TEL (Thesis advisor) / Moore, Robert RBM (Committee member) / Jin, Kailong KJ (Committee member) / Biegasiewicz, Kyle KFB (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2023