Microwave-assisted nitroxide-mediated polymerization of alkyl acrylates

Abstract

Nitroxide-mediated polymerizations of methyl and tert-butyl acrylate were performed in a single-mode microwave reactor at 120°C. The polymerizations could be carried out in a controlled way in concentrated solution (approx. 50 wt.-% of monomer) up to monomer conversions of around 90%. Monomer conversion followed first-order kinetics in the case of tert-butyl acrylate. For methyl acrylate, it seems that the kinetics obeyed the persistent radical effect. The polymers obtained from this controlled radical polymerization technique exhibited narrow molecular weight distributions (indicated by polydispersity indices below 1.3).

Microwave‐Assisted Controlled Ring‐Closing Cyclopolymerization of Diallyldimethylammonium Chloride Via the RAFT Process

“…[8] Perrier et al [9a] have investigated the RAFT-assisted polymerization of styrene, methyl methacrylate and methyl acrylate in the presence of microwave heating. The rate enhancements of up to 152 and 254% for MA and MMA respectively were shown with low polydispersities of 1.05.…”

Microwave-assisted nitroxide-mediated miniemulsion polymerization of styrene

“…Although many documents have been reported on applying microwave heating to NMRP (Leenen et al, 2005) and emulsion polymerization (Cao and Wu, 2005;Correa et al, 1998;He et al, 2001;Hu et al, 2003;Palacios and Valverde, 1996;Zhu et al, 2003a, b), to the best of our knowledge, there has been little report so far on the application of microwave irradiation (MI) in nitroxide-mediated emulsion/miniemulsion polymerization. Encouraged by the results (Li et al, 2006) obtained by the nitroxide-mediated radical bulk polymerization of styrene under a single-mode microwave synthesizer, in this article, we report the single-mode microwaveassisted NMRPs of styrene.…”

Recent Advances in Microwave-Assisted Polymer Synthesis

“…[84] Experiments using an oil bath heating source showed comparable polymerization rates but broadened molecular weight distributions for high conversion. These differences were attributed to the uniform in situ heating mode under MW conditions.…”