Fe(0) Powder/CuBr2-Mediated “Living”/Controlled Radical Polymerization of Methyl Methacrylate and Styrene at Ambient Temperature

✍ Scribed by Lili Zhou; Zhengbiao Zhang; Zhenping Cheng; Nianchen Zhou; Jian Zhu; Wei Zhang; Xiulin Zhu

• Book ID: 102942018
• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 2012
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 731 KB
• Volume: 213
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 1022-1352
• DOI: 10.1002/macp.201100545

✦ Synopsis

Abstract

The combination of zero‐valent iron (Fe(0) powder) and copper(II) bromide was used to mediate the polymerization of methyl methacrylate (MMA) or styrene (St) at 25 ° C. The results demonstrated that the solvent played an important role on the polymerization rate and molecular‐weight control. The polymerization in toluene displayed a poorly controlled process with remarkably low polymerization rate. With dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO) as solvent, the polymerization proceeded in a relatively high rate, and the number‐average molecular weights were controlled especially at higher conversion. High conversions (80%) of St could be achieved with narrow molecular weight distributions in DMSO at 25 °C. It was supposed that Fe(0) played a dual role, the activator for the generation of active radical and the reducing agent for CuBr~2~.