One-Pot Preparation of Inert Well-Defined Polymers by RAFT Polymerization and In Situ End Group Transformation.

A one-pot procedure that straightforwardly combines reversible addition-fragmentation chain transfer (RAFT) polymerization and end group transformation to remove the RAFT end groups is developed for the synthesis of well-defined poly(meth)acrylates and polyacrylamides with inert end groups. This procedure only requires the addition of an amine at the end of the standard RAFT polymerization procedure, which avoids the separation and purification of the intermediate polymers and, hence, extremely reduces the working time and utilized amount of solvents. Upon addition of the amine, a thiol group is formed by aminolysis of the thiocarbonylthio group, which subsequently undergoes Michael addition with unreacted monomer leading to an inert thioether functionalized polymer.