Synthesis of acrylated styrene-isoprene-styrene copolymer

Vulcanization of polymer by ultraviolet irradiation has been playing an important role in the industrial sector especially for coating, ink and printing applications. Polymers used in this area are sensitive to ultraviolet (UV) radiation. Their final products have properties required for particular specifications. One of the methods to synthesize ultraviolet-sensitive polymers is the grafting of ultraviolet-sensitive units onto other polymer backbones. In this work, styrene-isoprene-styrene copolymer (SIS) was selected as a polymer backbone whilst acrylic acid served as an ultraviolet sensitiser. The grafting reaction was carried out in a solution state of toluene through the ring-opening addition reaction of epoxidized SIS molecules. The results indicated that acrylic acid can be successfully grafted onto a previously epoxidized SIS backbone at a reaction temperature of 100 °C. Furthermore, the acrylation yield increased with the increase of reaction time.4 November, 2008.