Grafting on polybutadiene with polytetrahydrofuran macroperoxyinitiators. Postpolymerization studies

Grafting reactions of polybutadiene with macro peroxy initiators and postpolymerization were studied. The cationic polymerization of tetrahydrofuran (THF) initiated by the cationic species derived from bis-(4-bromomethylbenzoyl) peroxide (BBP) or bis-(3,5-dibromomethylbenzoyl) peroxide (BDBP) gave the PTHF macroperoxy initiator (MPI). PTHF-b-PMMA macroperoxy initiator (MPIb) was also obtained by the redox polymerization of methyl methacrylate initiated with the hydroxyl ends of PTHF and Ce(IV) salts without decomposing the peroxide groups in the middle. Macroperoxy initiators thermally grafted on cis-polybutadiene (PBD) with thermal curing to yield graft copolymers containing crosslinked and soluble parts, which were separated by the sol–gel analysis. FTIR spectra of the crosslinked samples indicated the characteristic signals of the PTHF, PBD and PMMA blocks. The crosslinked copolymers decomposed at around 470 °C. Postpolymerization of the crosslinked products indicated the increase in crosslinking density which has been followed by measuring the gradual increase of swelling values. Postpolymerization crosslinking was estimated as a first order reaction rate.