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Aqueous Raft Synthesis Of Stimuli-Responsive, Amphiphilic Block Copolymers And Self-Assembly Behavior In Solution And Incorporation Into Lbl Films, Matthew Grady Kellum

Dissertations

Of all the living radical polymerization techniques, reversible addition– fragmentation chain transfer (RAFT) polymerization is arguably the most versatile in terms of the reaction conditions (e.g. temperature and solvent selection), monomer selection (e.g. neutral, anionic, cationic, and zwitterionic), and purification. Since the introduction of RAFT in 1998, the McCormick research group and others including the Lowe, Sumerlin, and Davis research groups have synthesized a wide range of (co)polymers with predetermined molecular weights, low polydispersities, and advanced architectures utilizing aqueous RAFT (ARAFT) polymerization. These research groups have also studied how various block copolymers exhibit stimuli-responsive behavior due to a change in …