Designing, characterization, and thermal behavior of triazine-based dendrimers

Abstract Different generations of dendritic architecture with piperazine in core moiety and hydroxyl groups on the periphery were designed by divergent method. 1,4-biz(4,6-trichloro-1,3,5-triazin-2-yl)piperazine was synthesized as a core for dendrimer synthesis. Dendrimer was then grown to G3 from core compound using diethanolamine and cyanuric chloride as branching units. Dendrimer generations were characterized by infrared (IR) spectroscopy [Fourier transform IR (FTIR)], 1 H-nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR), 13 C-NMR, electrospray ionization-mass spectrometry (ESI-MS), and elemental analysis. The thermal behavior of both full- and half-generation dendrimers was investigated by thermogravimetric analysis (TGA) and differential scanning calorimetry (DSC). The TGA study revealed that dendrimer generations had a moderate thermal stability. Chlorine-terminated half-generation dendrimers were thermally more stable than hydroxyl-terminated full-generation dendrimers. The DSC technique was employed to determine the glass transition temperatures (Tg) of dendrimer generations. It was observed that the glass transition temperatures of synthesized dendrimer generations were of low value, which is similar to the values reported for the polyamidoamine (PAMAM) dendrimer of the same generation. It was also observed that, with the increase in the molecular weight or generation number of dendrimer, the glass transition temperature was also increased.