Synthesis and visualization of bottlebrush-shaped segmented hyperbranched polymers

Abstract

Visualization of single molecular morphology provides intuitive evidence to understand the relationship between the molecular structure and the synthetic method. Herein, by combining the architectural features of a molecular bottlebrush (MBB) and segmented hyperbranched polymer (SHBP), bottlebrush-shaped segmented hyperbranched polymers (B-SHBPs) with high grafting density (up to 2.7 side chains per backbone unit) were synthesized via a combination of self-condensing vinyl polymerization (SCVP) of hydroxyethyl methacrylate (HEMA) with different inimers and an accelerated copper-catalyzed azide–alkyne cycloaddition (CuAAC) grafting-onto strategy. The single molecular morphology of the resulting B-SHBPs were directly visualized by atomic force microscopy (AFM). The results confirmed that the reactivity of the polymerizable group in the inimers significantly affects the molecular morphology of the resulting SHBPs.