POLY(VINYL ETHERS) AS BUILDING-BLOCKS FOR NEW MATERIALS

The living cationic polymerization of vinyl ethers has been used to pr epare a number of new polymers with special properties. Sequential pol ymerization of the hydrophilic methyl vinyl ether (MVE) and the hydrop hobic octadecyl vinyl ether (ODVE) has lead to amphiphilic block-copol ymers with emulsifying properties for water/decane mixtures. Poly(viny l-ether) macromonomers were obtained by end-capping of living polymers with hydroxyethyl acrylate. Copolymerization of polyODVE-macromonomer with usual acrylates lead to highly branched hydrophobic polymers. Wh en the end-capping was performed with bifunctionally living polymers, the corresponding ''bis-marcomonomers'' were obtained. Copolymerizatio n of such bis-macromonomers with styrene or butyl acrylate, leads to t he formation of segmented polymer networks. In the case of polyODVE-po ly(butyl acrylate), these networks showed a pronounced phase separatio n. Due to the crystallinity of the polyODVE domains, these materials s howed shape memory properties.