Synthesis of polyacrylonitrile via reverse ATRP initiated by 1,1,2,2-tetraphenyl-1,2-ethanediol/CuCl2/2,2′-bipyridine

✍ Scribed by Chen Hou; Junshen Liu; Zhenliang Guo; Rongjun Qu

• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 2006
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 85 KB
• Volume: 103
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0021-8995
• DOI: 10.1002/app.23935

✦ Synopsis

Abstract

The reverse atom‐transfer radical polymerization (RATRP) technique using CuCl~2~/2,2′‐bipyridine (bipy) complex as a catalyst was applied to the living‐radical polymerization of acrylonitrile (AN). 1,1,2,2‐Tetraphenyl‐1,2‐ethanediol (TPED) was first used as the initiator in this copper‐based RATRP initiation system. A CuCl~2~ to bipy ratio of 0.5 not only gives the best control of molecular weight and its distribution, but also provides rather rapid reaction rate. The rate of polymerization increases with increasing the polymerization temperature, and the apparent activation energy was calculated to be 53.2 kJ mol^−1^. Because the polymers obtained were end‐functionalized by chlorine atoms, they were used as macroinitiators to proceed the chain extension polymerization in the presence of CuCl/bipy catalyst system via a conventional ATRP process. © 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Appl Polym Sci 103: 3529–3533, 2007