| Abstract: | This article describes the syntheses of various functional star‐shaped polymers via monomer‐selective living cationic polymerization of a vinyl ether (VE) and a divinyl compound with alkoxystyrene moieties by a one‐shot method. An aqueous solution of the resulting star‐shaped polymers with oxyethylene pendants exhibits thermally induced phase separation behavior. To achieve domino synthesis from various monomers, we investigated the optimum reactivity difference using a functional VE and a monofunctional alkoxystyrene. Moreover, the one‐shot copolymerization of a bifunctional VE and an alkoxystyrene is also conducted to yield a star‐shaped polymer via the core‐first method. © 2019 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Polym. Sci., Part A: Polym. Chem. 2019, 57, 2166–2174 |
