title: A combinatorial approach to studying the effects of N-alkyl groups on poly(N-alkyl and N,N-dialkylacrylamide) solubility.
abstract: Soluble polymers including poly(N-alkylacrylamide)s with low mole percent loadings of pendant groups are of interest in applications in catalysis, synthesis, sequestration, and soluble affinity chromatography where their thermal and phase-dependent solubility facilitates purification and separation. This work describes a library synthesis and study of the effects of polymer composition on the phase-selective solubility of dye-labeled poly(N-n-octadecylacrylamide-co-N-n-butylacrylamide) copolymers. To study the relative importance of n-octadecyl versus n-butyl groups, copolymers with different ratios of n-octadecylacrylamide and n-butylacrylamide but with similar degrees of polymerization and polydispersity were prepared by a split-pool synthesis using a highly soluble poly(N-acryloxy-2-dodecylsuccinimide) as the precursor. Polymer sequestrants were used to remove excess amines and the byproduct N-hydroxyl-2-dodecylsuccinimide without fractionation of the polyacrylamides. Other studies of dye-labeled poly(N,N-dialkylacrylamide)s prepared by the polymerization of N,N-dialkylacrylamides with methyl, ethyl, propyl, butyl, pentyl, and hexyl N-alkyl groups in a variety of thermomorphic or latent biphasic polar/nonpolar solvent mixtures showed that poly(N,N-dialkylacrylamide)s like poly(N-alkylacrylamide)s have phase-selective solubility that is highly dependent on the size of the N-alkyl group.
authors.affiliation: Department of Chemistry, Texas A&M University, P.O. Box 30012, College Station, Texas 77842-3012, USA. bergbreiter@tamu.edu
authors.forename: David E
authors.initials: DE
authors.lastname: Bergbreiter
authors.forename: Nydea A
authors.initials: NA
authors.lastname: Avilés-Ramos
authors.forename: Denisse
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Ortiz-Acosta
mesh_terms: D000178:Acrylamides / Q000737:chemistry*; D000478:Alkylation; D009682:Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy; D015394:Molecular Structure; D008970:Molecular Weight; D011108:Polymers / Q000737:chemistry*; D012995:Solubility; D013696:Temperature
chemical_list: D000178:Acrylamides; D011108:Polymers