Design and synthesis of living-free Electroactive Dendron end-functionalized macromolecules: Surface grafting studies

Grafting of polymer brushes if of high interest towards intelligent materials systems with stimuli response. While there has been a lot of interest on chemically modified attachment of initiators towards surfaces for surface initiated polymerization (SIP), very little work has been done on modifying electrode surfaces via electrochemical methods. To address this issue, we have proposed to use a preformed RAFT agent with an electrochemically active moiety to mediate SI-RAFT polymerization as well as grafting of CTA's on electrode surfaces to promote RAFT-SIP. In particular, we have used the first generation CTA (G1-CTA), which had been reported to facilitate RAFT polymerization in solution. The presence of the electro-active carbazole group in this RAFT agent enables its immobilization on the electrode surface through electro-grafting.