Cover Picture: Macromol. Rapid Commun. 11/2005

Linear-Hyperbranched Amphiphilic AB Diblock Copolymers Based on Polystyrene and Hyperbranched Polyglycerol

A convenient three-step strategy has been developed for the preparation of well-defined amphiphilic, linear hyperbranched block copolymers by hypergrafting. The synthetic procedure is based on a combination of carbanionic polymerization with the alkoxide-based controlled ring-opening multibranching polymerization of glycidol. A linear AB diblock copolymer polystyrene-block-polybutadiene (PS-b-PB) with narrow polydispersity was obtained by anionic copolymerization. Subsequent hydroxylation by hydroboration led to PS 508 -b-(PB-OH) 56 , used as macro--initiator for the polymerization of glycidol under slow monomer addition conditions.