New synthetic methods for the formation of basic,polyvalent, hyperbranched grafts

A practical synthetic route to polybasic, polyamine, hyperbranched grafts using commercially available polyethyleneimine (PEI) and cyanuric chloride as a coupling agent is described. The grafting process was followed by XPS spectroscopy, TGA analysis, ATR‐IR spectroscopy, acid–base titration, and by ¹³C CP‐MAS NMR spectroscopy. In the case of silica gel, thermal gravimetric analyses showed that a 35 wt % loading of graft could be obtained. Acid–base titration of hyperbranched PEI grafts on silica gel and oxidized polyethylene powder showed the ion‐exchange capacities of these PEI‐grafted substrates were 1.00 and 0.17 mmol of base/g of solid, respectively. Although the focus of the paper is on grafting on silica gel, the influence of the kind of support and solvent on the grafting process and the ion‐exchange capacity was examined. Water was a good solvent for PEI grafting onto silica gel, but a more hydrophobic polyethylene support required the use of dichloromethane as a solvent for PEI graft synthesis. © 2005 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Polym Sci Part A: Polym Chem 43: 4654–4665. 2005