Macromonomers and coordination polymerization

The present work discusses the synthesis of well-defined comb-shaped polymers or graft copolymer structures based on coordination (co)polymerization of macromonomers. Polystyrene macromonomers with various polymerizable entities were synthesized first by induced deactivation reactions. The homopolymerization of these macromonomers in the presence of selected early or late transition metal catalysts was examined. Comb-shaped polymers could be obtained over a large range of DP values. The results were compared to those obtained by anionic homopolymerization. Some results on the copolymerization of these PS macromonomers with ethylene in the presence of VERSIPOL^TM type catalysts were presented.