Aqueous Copper‐Mediated Living Radical Polymerisation of N‐Acryloylmorpholine,SET‐LRP in Water

The polymerisation of N‐acryloylmorpholine in water is reported utilising Cu(0)‐mediated living radical polymerisation (SET‐LRP). The inherent instability of Cu^I(Me₆‐Tren)Br] in aqueous solution is exploited via rapid disproportionation to prepare Cu(0) particles and Cu^II(Me₆‐Tren)Br₂] in situ prior to addition of monomer and initiator. Quantitative conversion is attained within 30 min for various degrees of polymerisation (DP_n = 20–640) with SEC showing symmetrical narrow molecular weight distributions (Đ < 1.18) in all cases. Optimised conditions are subsequently applied for the preparation of a diblock copolymer poly(NIPAm)‐b‐(N‐acryloylmorpholine), illustrating the versatility of this approach.