Chain degenerative

The modification of amino acids in proteins and peptides by oxidative processes plays a major role in the development of disease and in aging (Halliwell and Gutteridge, 1989, 1990 Kim et al., 1985 Tabor and Richardson, 1987 Stadtman, 1992). Tissue damage through free radical oxidation is known to cause various cancers, neurological degenerative conditions, pulmonary problems, inflammation, cardiovascular disease, and a host of other problems. Oxidation of protein structures can alter activity, inhibit normal protein interactions, modify amino acid side chains, cleave peptide bonds, and even cause crosslinks to form between proteins. 

These methods are based on the idea of establishing equilibrium between the active and dormant species in solution phase. In particular, the methods include three major techniques called stable free-radical polymerization (SFRP), atom transfer radical polymerization (ATRP), and the degenerative chain transfer technique (DCTT) [17]. Although such syntheses pose significant technical problems, these difficulties have all been successively overcome in the last few years. Nevertheless, the procedure of preparation of the resulting copolymers remains somewhat complicated. 

Terminally brominated PE as PE macroinitiator can be produced by other methods. It has been reported that vinyl terminated PE produced by a bis(phenoxy-imine)metal complex and MAO catalyst system (Mn = 1800, Mw/Mn = 1.70) was converted to terminally 2-bromoisobutyrate PE through the addition reaction of 2-bromoisobutyric acid to the vinyl chain end. Polyethylene-Wodc-poly( -bulyl acrylate) (PE-fo-PnBA) from terminally brominated PE by ATRP procedure has also been produced [68]. It was reported that degenerative transfer coordination polymerization with an iron complex can be used to prepare terminally brominated PE as a macroinitiator [69]. A Zn-terminated PE prepared using an iron complex and diethylzinc,... 

The degenerative nature of propagation results in reformation of the same active species, but with monomer consumption and chain growth. Although the monomer s thermodynamic polymerizability is independent of the mechanism, the mechanism and structure of the active species determines the rate of monomer conversion. The structure of the active species involved in carbocationic polymerizations was discussed in Section II detailed information on the reactivities of model species was presented in Chapter 2, with the conclusion that covalent precursors do not react directly with alkenes, but must first ionize to sp2-hybridized carbenium ions. Only the resulting carbenium ions can add to double bonds. 

In fact, the RAFT process resembles the degenerative transfer (DT) process [274]. In a polymerization in which an alkyl iodide is used as the degenerative transfer agent, the iodine atom is exchanged between a polymeric radical and a dormant chain, similar to the dithiocarbonate exchange in RAFT. However, in the case of degenerative transfer there is a direct equilibrium between the dormant and growing chains, without formation of an intermediate radical. 

As mentioned above, in both NMP and ATRP the exchange between the active and the dormant states is based on a reversible (although different) termination mechanism. Therefore, the exchange directly affects the radical concentration. In LRP by degenerative transfer, instead, this exchange is carried out by direct transfer of the w-end group between an active and a dormant chain. When an iodine atom is used as end group, the reaction can be expressed as follows ... 

The RAFT process can be regarded as a special case of degenerative transfer. As shown in Scheme 6.4, the reaction proceeds through the direct interaction of an active and a dormant chain with the formation of a reaction intermediate involving both chains [9a,b]. At this stage, the reaction can either go back,... 

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