The Penn State Research Foundation

D Rhubright

T C Chung

G J Jiang

Graft copolymers are disclosed which comprise an olefin borane-containing homopolymer or copolymer backbone polymer having radically polymerized polymeric segments chemically bonded as side chains or as a chain end. A borane-containing diene homopolymer or a copolymer of a diene and/or at least one alpha-olefin having from about 2 to 22 carbon atoms copolymerized with another monomer containing organoborane functional groups can be used as a backbone polymer to prepare the graft copolymers of the present invention. Under oxidation conditions, the borane group becomes the reaction site for the radical polymerization and copolymerization. Radical polymerizable monomers, such as methyl methacrylate, styrene, alpha-methylstyrene, acrylonitrile and the like, can be polymerized to yield high molecular weight graft copolymer. By this synthetic route, high graft efficiency is observed with only a very low concentration of homopolymer being produced.

Olefin graft copolymers prepared using borane-containing olefin backbone

Polyolefin graft copolymers are disclosed which comprise a polyolefin homopolymer or copolymer backbone polymer having a plurality of free radically polymerized polymeric segments chemically bonded as side chains. It has been found that the use of a borane-containing polyolefin comprising a copolymer of at least one alpha-olefin having from about 2 to 22 carbon atoms copolymerized with another monomer containing organoborane functional groups can be used as a backbone polymer to prepare the graft copolymers of the present invention. Under oxidation conditions, the borane group becomes the reaction site for the free radical polymerization and copolymerization. Numerous free radical polymerizable monomers, such as methyl methacrylate, styrene, alpha-methylstyrene, acrylonitrile and the like, can be polymerized to yield high molecular weight graft copolymers. By this synthetic route, high graft efficiency is observed with only a very low concentration of homopolymer being produced.

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D Rhubright