Many basic properties of polymer such as viscoelasticity, rubber elasticity and solidification temperatures are derived from the long, chain like nature of the molecules. At the same time the detailed chemical structure is used to fine tune the properties, such as the solubility and transition temperature. More varied properties are obtained by copolymerization of chemically distinct monomers.
In this thesis, we report our studies on quaternized copolymers synthesized by reversible addition fragmentation chain transfer (RAFT) polymerization. Two types of polymers are prepared by either first quaternizing one monomer, vinyl benzyl chloride, and copolymerizing with styrene or copolymerizing vinyl benzyl chloride and styrene and then quaternizing the polymer.
The synthesized polymers were characterized by NMR, thermogravimetric analysis and differential scanning calorimetry to determine the differences in the microstructure and resultant material properties of the polymers synthesized by pre- and post-polymerization quaternization of the vinyl benzyl chloride groups in the polymer.