Polymers with Very Low Polydispersities from Atom Transfer Radical Polymerization
A radical polymerization process that yields well-defined polymers normally obtained only through anionic polymerizations is reported. Atom transfer radical polymerizations of styrene were conducted with several solubilizing ligands for the copper(I) halides: 4,4'-di-tert-butyl, 4,4'-di-n-heptyl, and 4,4'-di-(5-nonyl)-2,2'-dipyridyl. The resulting polymerizations have all of the characteristics of a living polymerization and displayed linear semilogarithmic kinetic plots, a linear correlation between the number-average molecular weight and the monomer conversion, and low polydispersities (ratio of the weight-average to number-average molecular weights of 1.04 to 1.05). Similar results were obtained for the polymerization of acrylates.
Patten
TE
Department of Chemistry, Carnegie Mellon University, 4400 Fifth Avenue, Pittsburgh, PA 15213, USA.
Xia
J
Abernathy
T
Matyjaszewski
K