Russian Journal of Applied Chemistry, Vol. 75, No. 9, 2002, pp. 1458 1461. Translated from Zhurnal Prikladnoi Khimii, Vol. 75, No. 9,
2002, pp. 1490 1493.
Original Russian Text Copyright
2002 by Ershov, Gavrilova, Panarin.
MACROMOLECULAR CHEMISTRY
AND POLYMERIC MATERIALS
Modification of Vinylformamide by Michael Addition
to Methyl Acrylate and Methyl Vinyl Ketone,
and Copolymers Derived from the Resulting Products
A. Yu. Ershov, I. I. Gavrilova, and E. F. Panarin
Institute of Macromolecular Compounds, Russian Academy of Sciences, St. Petersburg, Russia
Received June 18, 2002
Abstract Vinylformamide reacts with methyl acrylate and methyl vinyl ketone under conditions of base
catalysis, following the Michael addition pattern, to give methyl 3-(vinylformylamino)propionate and previ-
ously unknown 4-(vinylformylamino)-2-butanone. Radical copolymerization of these compounds with vinyl-
formamide and N-vinylpyrrolidone was studied.
Targeted transport of a physiologically active sub-
CH=O
stance to a definite organ, cell, or tissue of a living
CH2=CH N
+ CH2=CH COR
body is an important problem in modern pharmacol-
ogy. Efficient carriers for such transport can be water-
soluble copolymers derived from N-vinylamides,
which show enhanced affinity for proteins owing to
the presence of similar amide groups and other func-
tional moieties.
H
CH=O
CH2=CH N
CH2CH2COR
Ia, Ib
where R = OCH (Ia), CH (Ib).
3
3
Polymers derived from N-vinylpyrrolidone and
N-vinylacetamide and its N-alkyl analogs were studied
previously [1 3]. Introduction of hydrophobic alkyl
radicals into side chains of such polymers opens up
possibilities for control of their conformational state
and increases the probability of their binding with
hydrophobic sections of cell membranes.
We found that the reaction occurs within 24 h at
room temperature without a solvent in the presence
of catalytic amounts of an alkali. The products are
liquids readily distillable in a vacuum. The physico-
chemical characteristics of the compounds are listed
in Table 1.
1
The H NMR spectra of Ia and Ib fully confirm
their structure. In particular, the spectra (Fig. 1a) con-
tain a characteristic ABX pattern of vinyl protons (4.5
and 6.5 ppm) and two multiplets of methylene protons
(2.5 and 4.0 ppm, CH CH N). Some signals are
doubled because of braked rotation of the formyl
group about the C N bond (Table 2).
In this work, with the aim to develop new copoly-
mers based on vinylformamide (VF) and containing
functional fragments in pendant chains, we studied
modification of VF by the reactions with methyl
acrylate (MA) and methyl vinyl ketone (MVK) under
conditions of base catalysis, following the Michael
addition pattern:
2
2
Thus, Michael addition of vinylformamide to com-
Table 1. Physicochemical characteristics of Ia and Ib
Found, %
Calculated, %
Compound
bp, C/P, mm Hg
Formula
Yield, %
C
H
N
C
H
N
Ia
Ib
93 96/2
98 104/1
53.54
59.60
6.97
7.79
8.87 C7H11NO3 53.49
9.88 C7H11NO2 59.56
7.05
7.85
8.91
9.92
70
75
1070-4272/02/7509-1458$27.00 2002 MAIK Nauka/Interperiodica