Tethering of Homo and Block Glycopolymer Chains onto Montmorillonite Surface by Atom Transfer Radical Polymerization

Well-defined homo glycopolymer/montmorillonite (MMT) nanocomposite (gly1) was prepared successfully by the “grafting from” technique from the modified surface of MMT via surface initiated atom transfer radical polymerization (SI-ATRP) of 3-O-methacryloyl-1,2:5,6-di-O-isopropylidene-α-D-glucofuranose (gly) in the presence of Cu(I)Br/bipyridyl at 90 ̊C in xylene. Well-defined diblock copolymers (gly2, gly3, gly4 and gly5) were also synthesized via the same technique by using comonomers of methylmethacrylate (MMA) or styrene (St) with glycomonomer (gly) using the same catalytic system. The formed nanocomposites showed both intercalated and exfoliated structures, as judged by XRD and TEM measurements. Further analyses were performed on such nanocomposites to confirm their formation such as TGA and DSC. The structures of the attached polymers to MMT were characterized by H NMR.