Patent ID: 7776971

Claim:
A process for making a dendritic macromolecule from monomers using a combination of polymerization and an irreversible terminator multifunctional initiator, comprising the steps of: (a) initiating the polymerization of a monomer using a multi-functional sulfonyl halide initiator having a number of sulfonyl halide functional groups, to produce a branched polymer having a number of arms corresponding to the number of sulfonyl halide functional groups of said sulfonyl halide initiator; (b) quantitatively end-capping said branched polymer with an excess of a TERMINI compound having a thiocarbamate group, to produce an end-terminated branched polymer having a TERMINI thiocarbamate group terminating one or more branches of said branched polymer; and (c) demasking a TERMINI thiocarbamate group to produce a sulfonyl halide group by oxidative chlorination, thereby transforming a masked sulfonyl halide into an active sulfonyl halide initiator group; wherein said monomer is selected from methacrylates, acrylates, acrylonitriles, methacrylonitriles, styrenes, and combinations thereof and said TERMINI compound is (1,1-dimethylethyl)[[1-[3,5-bis(S-phenyl 4-N,N′-diethylthiocarbamate)phenyl]ethenyl]oxy] dimethylsilane.