Development of new hydrophilic polymer supports based on dimethylacrylamide

A survey of the development of hydrophilic resins based on dimethylacrylamide (DMA) is presented. It describes the preparation of DMA-based resins by suspension copolymerization of DMA and acrylamide-based crosslinking and functional monomers. Swellability data for a number of DMA-based resins are tabulated, demonstrating that the resins swell to approximately the same extent in dichloromethane as they do in water, methanol, dimethylformamide or dimethylsulphoxide, but they swell only slightly or not at all in tetrahydrofuran. Typical chemical reactions employed for quantitative estimation or derivatization of resin-bound functional groups, including those involving intra-resin crosslinking, are discussed. The development of composite polymer supports, in which the DMA-based polymer is supported on kieselguhr particles or an amphiphilic ion exchange polymer is supported on DMA-based resin beads, is also covered briefly.