GRAFT POLYMERISATION Subject

Mention may finally be made of graft polymers derived from natural rubber which have been the subject of intensive investigation but which have not achieved commercial significance. It has been found that natural rubber is an efficient chain transfer agent for free-radical polymerisation and that grafting appears to occur by the mechanism shown in Figure 30.8. 

Kolb and Meier [43] prepared a malonate derivative of methyl 10-undecenoate, which was polymerised further with 1,6-hexanediol using titanium (IV) isopropoxide as a catalyst. This polymalonate, bearing a C9 aliphatic side chain with terminal double bonds, was then subjected to grafting by ruthenium-catalysed cross-metathesis reactions with acrylates or thiol-ene addition reactions. This functionalisation enabled a subsequent Passerini multi-component reaction [44] using the pendant carboxylic-acid moiety of the modified polymers that resulted from the thiol-ene addition of 3-mercaptopropionic acid into the initial double bonds of the polymer. 

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