Liu et al.
FULL PAPER
In this paper, a series of linear polymer, poly(ethoxy
ethyl glycidyl ether-co-allyl glycidyl ether) [P(EEGE-
co-AGE)], were synthesized firstly through anionic
ring-opening polymerization (ROP) by using AGE and
EEGE with the catalyst of triisobutylaluminum (i-Bu3Al)
and tetraoctylammonium bromide (NOct4Br).[23,24] The
obtained intermediate product was subsequently hydro-
lyzed and the linear polymer, P(Gly-co-AGE), pendant
with both hydroxyl groups and double bonds was gen-
erated. The motivation to design and synthesize this
kind of polymer is that, for one thing, we desire that the
as-synthesized polymers possess active hydroxyl groups
(for bio-compatibility and bio-application considera-
tions) as many as possible; for another, the as-synthe-
sized polymers should contain other active functional
groups which could be chemically modified further eas-
ily (e.g., introduction of DNA, RNA, drug molecules or
other bioactive molecules). That is, on a single analog
PEG chain, different kind of functional groups are in-
troduced at a time. From the synthetic route it can be
expected that the ratio of hydroxyl group to alkene
could be adjusted in a wide range to meet the practical
application demand.
magnesium sulfate for 1 h, and then filtrated. The col-
orless liquid product (EEGE) was obtained by vacuum
distillation (51 ℃/80 Pa) with a yield of 80%.
Copolymerization of EEGE with AGE
The typical procedure used for the copolymerization
of EEGE with AGE was as follows: a Schlenk tube
(about 20 mL in volume) was vacuumed at 120 ℃ for
1 h and cooled to room temperature and then to 0℃ in
argon atmosphere. Toluene (10.0 mL), EEGE (1.0 mL,
6.6 mmol), AGE (0.78 mL, 6.6 mmol), tetraoctylammo-
nium bromide (0.035 g, 0.06 mmol) and triisobutylalu-
minum (1.0 mol/L in toluene, 1.1 mL) were added into
the tube in argon atmosphere and the tube was sealed.
Then, the reaction was held at 0 ℃ for 12 h in argon
atmosphere. The reaction was terminated by addition of
a few drops of ethanol subsequently. After removal of
the solvents by rotary evaporation, the residue was dis-
solved in dichloromethane, dried by anhydrous sodium
sulfate and filtered. The final wax-like product was ob-
tained after complete removal of solvents under vacuum
at 50 ℃. The yield is near 100%.
Deprotection of the copolymer: P(EEGE-co-AGE)
The deprotection procedure was illustrated as fol-
lows. P(EEGE-co-AGE) (1.2 g) was dissolved into 100
mL ethanol which contained 3% (V/V) hydrochloric
acid (ca. 0.054 mol/L). After stirring for 4 h at room
temperature, the solution was neutralized by adding 50
mL of 1.0 mol/L sodium carbonate aqueous solution.
The reaction mixture was filtered. The filtrate was dis-
tilled off the solvent, and then dried at 50 ℃ for 12 h
under vacuum. The viscous liquid product was achieved
with the yield near 100%.
Experimental
Materials and measurements
Glycidol (2,3-epoxypropan-1-ol, 96%, Aldrich), tri-
isobutylaluminum (i-Bu3Al, 1.0 mol/L in toluene, Al-
drich), and tetraoctylammonium bromide (NOct4Br,
98%, Aldrich) were used as received. Allyl glycidyl
ether (AGE) purchased from Acros was distilled under
vacuum, and treated with triisobutylaluminum for 15
min in a glass flask equipped with PTFE stopcocks to
remove traces of impurities. Toluene was purified
through distillation over sodium chips under nitrogen
atmosphere before use. Other chemical reagents were
purchased from local chemical corporations and used as
received. FTIR spectra were recorded on a Nexus 670
Fourier transform infrared spectrometer (by Nicolet).
Results and Discussion
Chemical structure of the as-synthesized copolymers
The synthetic route for P(EEGE-co-AGE) and its
deprotection form is outlined in Figure 1. The first step,
the synthesis of EEGE, was order to protect the hy-
droxyl group of glycidol to avoid side reaction in the
subsequent experiments. Then, EEGE and AGE were
copolymerized to generate a linear copolymer, P(EEGE-
co-AGE), by using tetraoctylammonium bromide as the
initiator and triisobutylaluminum as the catalyst. Finally,
the polymer was hydrolyzed in ethanol containing hy-
drochloric acid for 4 h.
1
The H NMR spectroscopies were measured on a Mer-
cury-Plus 300 MHz (by Varian). The molecular weights
of the as-synthesized polymers were detected with a
Waters Breeze gel chromatography using dimethyl for-
mamide as the solvent and polystyrene as the standard.
Synthesis of 2,3-epoxypropyl-1-ethoxyethyl ether
(EEGE)
The protection for the hydroxyl group of glycidol
was performed following the procedure reported in the
literatures.[25,26] Glycidol (10.00 g) was dissolved into
ethyl vinyl ether (40 mL) in a 100 mL flask equipped
with a magnetic stirrer; 4-methylbenzenesulfonic acid
(0.25 g) was added in batch. In the feeding process, the
temperature of the mixture was controlled below 35 ℃
with a constant stirring for 3 h. Then saturated solution
of sodium bicarbonate aqueous (100 mL) was added.
The obtained organic layer was dried by anhydrous
Figures 2 and 3 are the 1H NMR spectra of a typical
copolymer before (measured in DMSO-d6) and after
(recorded in CD3OD) deprotection. The attribution of
each proton in the polymer is labeled in the figures.
After the protection groups of glycidol (in EEGE)
were eliminated, some proton peaks, e.g., δ 4.64-4.68
[proton 6 in P(EEGE-co-AGE), as shown in Figure 2]
disappeared. By comparing Figures 2 and 3, the charac-
teristic peaks of AGE (δ 5.7, 5.3 and 3.9) had no obvi-
ous changes during the deprotection procedure. The
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© 2013 SIOC, CAS, Shanghai, & WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim
Chin. J. Chem. 2013, 31, 1315—1320