Design and Development of Bottlebrush Polymers for Advanced Technologies

Abstract

Bottlebrush polymers or molecular bottlebrushs are unique polymers with a complex architecture. This cylindrical bottlebrush structure can be constructed via a “bottom-up” method through controlled radical polymerizations to synthesize macromonomers, followed by living ring-opening olefin metathesis polymerizations of macromonomer frameworks. This “bottom-up” synthetic strategy allows bottlebrush polymers to be deliberately designed to tailor their properties and their site-specific functionalization. The compositions and dimensions of bottlebrush polymers can be refined with a high degree of control over the synthetic chemistry using predetermined kinetic parameters of living free radical polymerizations throughout synthetic pathways. Additionally, the functionalities of bottlebrush polymers can be determined by a wide selection of functional monomers which can be used as building blocks for bottlebrush polymer fabrication. Employing a series of monomers with varied functionalities, from the wide range of choices, enables the realization of numerous potential applications of bottlebrush polymers. The new design, fabrication and scientific investigation of bottlebrush polymer systems for several advanced technologies will be explored and presented in this dissertation–hole transport materials for organic light-emitting diodes (Chapter II), porous membranes for gas adsorption and separation (Chapter III), and amphiphilic BBPs with high graft densities as potential templating materials for the anisotropic growth of inorganic nanoparticles (Chapter IV). Each bottlebrush macromolecule includes one or more functional moieties that assume a role to improve device performances.