Molecular weight enables fine-tuning the thermal and dielectric properties of polymethacrylates bearing sulfonyl and nitrile groups as dipolar entities

Abstract

In this work, polymethacrylates containing sulfonyl and nitrile functional groups were successfully prepared by conventional radical polymerization and reversible addition-fragmentation chain-transfer polymerization (RAFT). The thermal and dielectric properties were evaluated, for the first time, considering differences in their molecular weights and dispersity values. Variations of the aforementioned properties do not seem to substantially affect the polarized state of these materials, defined in terms of the parameters ε’r, ε”r and tan (δ). However, the earlier appearance of dissipative phenomena on the temperature scale for materials with lower molecular weights or broader molecular weight distributions, narrows the range of working temperatures in which they exhibit high dielectric constants along with low loss factors. Notwithstanding the above, as all polymers showed, at room temperature, ε’r values above 9 and loss factors below 0.02, presenting higher dielectric performance when compared to conventional polymer materials, they could be considered as good candidates for energy storage applications.