New hybrid materials based on poly(ethylene oxide), polystyrene, or polydienes and octafunctional silsesquioxanes

 
Hybrid inorganic-organic materials, combining the unique behavior of organic polymers with the good physical properties of ceramics, have attracted considerable attention in recent years.[1] In the past two decades, polyoctahedral silsesquioxanes (POSS) have been shown to represent unique three dimensional nanometer-sized building blocks that can be used to create a large variety of hybrid macromolecular architectures. The present work discusses the synthesis, the characterization and some properties of novel hybrid materials based on poly(ethylene oxide) (PEO)[2,3], atactic polystyrene (PS), poly(styrene-b-isoprene)(PS-b-PI) macromonomers and octakis(dimethylsilyloxy) silsesquioxane (Q8M8H). The strategy was extended to hybrid materials containing isotactic polystyrene (iPS). New crystalline inorganic-organic hybrid materials containing iPS could be obtained by means of hydrosilylation coupling of the vinyl-terminated iPS with Q8M8H.[4] Well-defined linear hybrids containing one iPS chain and seven ethyl groups per silica core (iPS-Q8M8E7) as well as star-shaped hybrids containing up to eight iPS side chains (iPS8-Q8M8) could be isolated. These materials are well-suited for surface modification and many other applications.