Design, synthesis and polymerization of highly branched pseudodendrimers through tandem reactions

BACKGROUND: Pseudodendrimers are hyperbranched polymers which are isomeric with dendrimers, that is, each repeat unit is either fully reacted or only singly reacted. The careful design of an ABB′ monomer leads to higher branching by virtue of tandem reactions that increase the reactivity of linear units during polymerization, leading to fully reacted repeat units. The resulting polymers are predicted to be very highly branched, and in the optimum case, pseudodendrimers. RESULTS: Our work shows that 6‐amino‐3‐bromophthalide leads to a highly branched polymer via bromohydrin decomposition during polymerization, giving polymers of M̄ = of 3000 and a polydispersity index of 1.03. Our findings indicate a degree of branching of 0.84. The synthesis of similar polymers using different techniques confirms our proposed intermediate. CONCLUSION: We have demonstrated a new class of hyperbranched polymers which are highly branched, and may be considered pseudodendrimers. Copyright © 2009 Society of Chemical Industry