Mesitylene: Trimethylbenzenes and Chain Polymerization of Vinyl Monomers

Mesitylene

Uses

Trimethylbenzene (TMB) is a commercially accessible mixture of three isomers in varying proportions: TMB or hemimellitene, TMB or Mesitylene, and TMB or pseudocumene. TMB isomers are created during the refining of petroleum. TMB isomers are most commonly found in gasoline; other applications for TMB include solvents in dyestuff intermediates, paint thinners, and ultraviolet oxidation stabilizers for polymers.

Star Polymers

When compared to linear equivalents of the same molar mass, star polymers have interesting features, particularly reduced bulk and solution viscosities. Furthermore, these architectures provide a greater number of chain-end features, which may be critical in many applications. The two most common ways for making star polymers from CLRP are the 'core first method and the 'arm first method.

The Approach of Putting the Core First

The core-first technique has the benefit of allowing for the fabrication of well-defined star polymers with a constant number of arms and similar arm lengths, which is critical for studying the structure-property connection. This method necessitates the creation of multifunctional alkoxyamines in the case of NMP. PS star polymers with well-defined shapes were created. TEMPO-based alkoxyamines with multifunctional were also used to make a range of star polymers. A Mesitylene, a cyclodextrin, a porphyrin, a dendrimer, a polyhedral oligomeric silsesquioxane fragment served as the star polymer's core. Star polymers containing a PnBA block were created using multifunctional SG1-based alkoxyamines.

The Arms-First Strategy

A premade linear polymer is coupled with a multifunctional coupling agent such as divinylbenzene in the 'arm first technique (DVB). Due to the coupling agent and a shell of the premade linear polymer, this approach produces a star shape with a network core. The simplicity of this method hinges on the fact that no organic synthesis step is required. The Mesitylene resulting star polymers, however, do not have a constant arm number, leading to the creation of star polymers with significant polydispersities.