Synthesis of biodegradable thermoplastic copolymers based on starch by atom transfer radical polymerization (ATRP): Monolayer chain growth on starch

Modification of starch is increasingly being studied and starch is used for applications in which synthetic polymers have traditionally been the materials of choice. In this work the surface of starch was successfully modified by the polymerization of polystyrene and polyacrylamide by atom transfer radical polymerization (ATRP) method in dispersion medium. For this propose the bromoactylated starch was prepared by the reaction between hydroxyl groups of starch and the bromoacetyl bromide in DMA/LiCl (5%) in the presence of pyridine. The bromoactylated starch acts as macroinitiator in ATRP of styrene. The polymer chains' growth on surface of starch was clearly showed by the AFM images. Other analyses were used in this work such as FT-IR, DSC, and TGA.