An effective method to prepare sucrose polymers by Thiol-Ene photopolymerization

A facile method to obtain novel sucrose polymers is reported. These polymers were obtained by means of the Thiol-Ene photopolymerization technique. The sucrose was functionalized with allyl groups by etherification with allyl bromide and then photopolymerized by the step-growth mechanism with multifunctional thiols. The kinetics of photopolymerization were determined by optical pyrometry and Real-Time Fr-IR. It was found that this photocurable system was highly reactive obtaining solid crosslinked polymers that displayed high uniformity in the crosslink density. A T-g of 58 degrees C was determined by means of DMA for the polymer derived from A2S and PETKMP. The prepared polymers displayed thermal stability up to 230 degrees C. (C) 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved,