Nanostructured surfaces from block copoly(2-oxazoline)s prepared by microwave-assisted cationic ring-opening polymerization

Poly(2-oxazoline)s are highly interesting polymers with tunable properties because they can be obtained from a large no. of differently substituted monomers. These 2-oxazoline monomers can undergo living cationic ring-opening polymn. under appropriate conditions resulting in well-defined polymers with narrow mol. wt. distributions. Moreover, the living character allows the synthesis of multiblock copolymers. However, the rather long reaction times (up to several days) for the polymn. of 2-oxazolines has been an important problem, limiting potential applications. Recently, an improved polymn. procedure, which overcomes this drawback, has been reported. This procedure uses closed reaction vials and microwave irradn. yielding an acceleration of the cationic ring-opening polymn. of 2-oxazolines by a factor of 400 when compared to conventional reflux polymns. Block copoly(2-oxazoline)s obtained by this method have been used as starting materials for the formation nanostructured surfaces by evapn.-induced micellization during spin-coating. [on SciFinder (R)]