Thermally amendable tailor-made functional polymer by RAFT polymerization and “click reaction”

This investigation reports the preparation and characterization of thermally amendable functional polymer bearing furfuryl functionality via reversible-addition fragmentation and chain transfer (RAFT) polymerization and Diels-Alder (DA) reaction. In this case, furfuryl methacrylate (FMA) was polymerized using 4-cyano-4-[(dodecylsulfanylthiocarbonyl)sulfanyl] pentanoic acid as RAFT reagent and 4,4′-azobis(4-cyanovaleric acid) as thermal initiator. 1H NMR, 13C NMR, and matrix-assisted laser desorption ionization time-of-flight mass spectrometry analysis showed that furfuryl group in poly(furfuryl methacrylate) (PFMA) was not affected during RAFT polymerization and the tailor-made polymer had RAFT end group. The DA reaction was successfully carried out between the reactive furfuryl functionality of PFMA and different bismaleimides. The thermoreversible property of these DA polymers was characterized by FT-IR and DSC analysis.