Synthesis of cellulose based graft polymers using metal-catalyzed living radical polymerization

A copolymer composed of styrene and acrylonitrile was grafted onto cellulose backbone by free radical polymerization and atom transfer radical polymerization (ATRP) method. First, styrene was grafted onto cellulose Fibers by using suspension polymerization and free-radical polymerization technique. Potassium persulfate (PPS) was used as a chemical initiator and water was used as a medium. We used cellulose-graft-polystyrene as a starting polymer and N-bromosuccinimide (NBS) as a brominating agent to obtain polymers with bromine group. This brominated cellulose fibers were used as an ATRP macroinitiator. This macroinitiator can polymerize acrylonitrile in the presence of  CuCl / 2, 2'-Bipyridine (Bpy) catalyst system, in THF solvent at 90°C. The formation of the graft copolymer was confirmed with FTIR, XRD, SEM, TGA and DSC methods.